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A THEORY OF REALITY 



A THEORY OF EEALITY 



AN ESSAY 



IX 



METAPHYSICAL SYSTEM UPON THE BASIS 



HUMAN COGNITIVE EXPERIENCE 



BY 

/ 

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADU 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IX YALE UXIVERSITY 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1899 






31238 






Copyright, 1899, 
By Charles Scribner's Sons. 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




gErttbersitg ISress: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 












TO 

THOSE 

WHO HAVE THE FAITH 

OF REASON IN ITS STRIVINGS 

TO KNOW THE DEEPER TRUTH OF THINGS 

THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY 

AND AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 



" Endure 
For consciousness the motions of Thy Will : 
For apprehension those transcendent truths 
Of the pure Intellect that stand as Laws." 



PREFACE 



The prefatory explanations which I wish to make with respect 
to the aims and the conclusions of this book are so few and 
obvious that they may be very briefly dispatched. The problem 
which it attempts, and the method which it employs, are stated 
at some length in the first chapter. Its main conclusions — the 
" Theory of Reality " it advocates — are reiterated and en- 
forced in connection with the critical discussion of each topic ; 
they are given synthetic treatment and summarized in the 
concluding portions of the book. The faithfulness of its 
appeal to recognized facts and to the positive sciences has 
been emphasized by the frequency with which the conceptions 
and phrases defining man's " cognitive experience " are 
employed. 

There are, however, two or three considerations to which 
I should like to call attention in this Preface. The first of 
these concerns the relation in which this book stands to a 
work published in 1897 and entitled " Philosophy of Knowl- 
edge." That work dealt with the problem of man as a 
knower ; and this deals with the problem of the. reality known. 
These two problems, although admitting of a certain amount 
of relatively independent discussion, are really not unlike two 
aspects of one and the same all-inclusive object of human 
critical and reflective thinking. The doctrine of knowledge, 
then, which was elaborated in the earlier book, is assumed 
and trusted throughout in the discussions of this book. And, 
on the other hand, the theory of reality which was discovered 



Vlll PREFACE 

in germinal form by the earlier book is the conclusion 
elaborated into a system of metaphysics by the studies which 
this book contains. While I then felt the need, through lack 
of predecessors among modern English writers on philosophy 
in the definite line of epistemological research (as I understood 
it), of the charitable consideration due to the " pioneer," or 
struggler with the more primitive obstacles in the path, I now 
ask that this attempt at a theory of reality should be con- 
sidered in the light of the positions taken by its predecessor 
and yet companion volume. 

I ask also — and surely the request is reasonable — that 
this book should be credited with making only such claims as 
its title and whole construction indicate. It is avowedly 
speculative ; it puts itself forward only as affording a tenable 
theory for the solution of those profound problems touching 
the ultimate Nature of Reality, with which human thought has 
always contended, and will continue to contend until the end 
of human existence. It is not necessary here to renew 
discussion upon the relations in which " theory " — especially 
of the kind to which systematic metaphysics leads — stands 
to knowledge, or to faith, or to the life of conduct. I have 
been chiefly concerned in this book to fulfil the conditions 
which belong to the establishment of a valid speculative result 
upon a basis of fact and of science. If obscurities and other 
faults of style, that are separable from the theoretical handling 
of such themes, are found abundant here, the author can only 
say that he has tried to avoid them ; and that no one will 
welcome more than he all improvements by others, both of 
method and of result. 

There is only one other point to which I wish to call 
attention. The field of general and systematic metaphysics 
has been so long and so thoroughly cultivated by the pro- 
foundest and keenest thinkers that for any writer now to 
claim, either expressly or implicitly, a considerable share of 
originality would be unworthy ; even the attempt at originality 



PREFACE ix 

would be likely either to depreciate the result or to defeat it- 
self. In my preparatory studies for this book, as for all my 
previous essays in psychology and philosophy, I have faith- 
fully tried to keep my mind in genial communion with the 
best both of the past and of the present time. The " Theory of 
Eeality" here advocated is, of course, not essentially new : on 
the contrary, its most important features have been drawn, 
although with varying details, again and again. Xone the 
less this theory is peculiarly my own ; and this is because I 
have made it my own by going to the sources of all defensible 
metaphysics in the cognitive experience of the race — both 
that which appertains to the ,; plain man's consciousness " and 
that which has been gathered into the different positive 
sciences. It is, therefore, a not wholly unwarranted hope that 
the readers of this book will find in it something fresh and 
new, as respects the way in which the critical analysis of the 
categories is conducted, and also as respects the manner of 
making and expounding its final, speculative synthesis. 

The few references made to other works give no indication 
of my obligations to the great number of workmen who have 
preceded me in the same attempt at a - Theory of Reality."' 
Xeither is the fact of reference to any particular author an 
indication of the extent of my obligations. For some of the 
names mentioned in the notes are relatively unimportant ; 
others are among the great personages in the history of 
philosophy. References in metaphysics have little or no value 
as authority : and no man need feel wronged because he has 
held and published opinions in this field identical with those 
of any other author, and yet has not been quoted in support 
or elucidation of them. I wish, however, to say that the 
chapters in this book which come into closest relations with 
the physical sciences have, in general, been submitted to 
friends and colleagues who are experts in these sciences ; and 
that I have been both assisted and reassured by their kindly 
comments and criticisms. But to mention names here would 



x PREFACE 

create false impressions regarding both their part and that of 
the author in constructing the views of these chapters. 

How preceding works of mine on psychology and philoso- 
phy have led up to this volume, and how it stands in the 
system of philosophical thoughts with the elaboration of 
which I am concerned, as an important part of my life-work, 
I have ventured to explain at some length in the closing 
chapter. 

GEOEGE TEUMBULL LADD. 

Yale University, April, 1899. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

Page 

ON METAPHYSICS ; ITS NATURE ; ITS METHOD ; AND THE PRO- 
PRIETY OF IT 

The Rights of Metaphysics — Necessary Part of all Philosophy — 
Agnostic Position untenable — The Objections of Science — and 
of Literature — or Religion — The Nature of Metaphysics — Re- 
lations to Science and to Epistemology — Metaphysics as Inter- 
pretation — As a Discussion of the Categories — The Propriety of 
Metaphysics 1 

CHAPTER II 

PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 

The Distinction involved — Psychological Origin of the Distinction — 
Impossibility of mere Appearance — Application to the Nature of 
the Self — as belonging to all Self-consciousness — Correlation of 
the two Terms — The Trans-subjective always involved — The 
Distinction accepted 34 

CHAPTER III 

ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 

Meaning of the word " Reality " — Its Emotional Effects — Its Wealth 
of Content — Reality as actual Thing — Not wholly a Product of 
Thought — Reality as Will — Negative Definitions of the Concep- 
tion — Positive Definitions of the same Conception 57 

CHAPTER IV 

REALITY AS AN ACTUAL HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 

The Relations of all the Categories — They are inseparable in Reality 
— Analysis of " Being in Space " — All Categories implicate in 
Each Reality — Yet None analyzable into Any Other — Special 
Pairs and Groups — The Unity of the Categories — Criticism of 
different Systems — Proofs of this Unity 84 



Xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V 

PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 

Page 

The Conception of Substance — Testimony of Sensuous Experience 

The Usages of Science — Genesis of the Conception of Substance 

— The Logician's View — Idea of Activity involved — Related to 
the Category of Force — Particular Existence — The Conception 

of Quality — The Analogy of the Self Ill 

CHAPTER VI 

CHANGE AND BECOMING 

The View of Heraclitus — Genesis of the Conception of Change — The 
Conception as realized by the Self — Impossibility of discrediting 
the Conception — Change as a System of Changes — Necessity for 
Principles of Becoming — Reality not mere Mechanism of Change 140 

CHAPTER VII 

RELATION 

Relation as itself related to other Categories — Kant's Treatment of It 

— Origin of, in Cognitive Judgment — The Kinds of Relation — 
This Category without Limits — Meaning of, as applied to Self — 
The Absolute not the Unrelated , 160 

CHAPTER VIII 

TIME 

Special Character of Time and Space — The Formal Categories — 
Negative Criticism of these Categories — Psychological Origin of 
Time — Scientific Conception of Time — Time both Relative and 
Real — The Conception of the World's Time — The Infinity of 
Time — Kantian View of Time as a 'priori — Transcendental Real- 
ity of this Category — Time and the Absolute .178 

CHAPTER IX 

SPACE AND MOTION 

Space as a Principle of Differentiation — Difficulties of the true Con- 
ception — Negative Attitude insufficient — The Assumptions in- 
volved — Essential Nature of the Space-Function — The Category 
as an Active Principle — Genesis of Space — Consciousness — 
Scientific Conception of Space — Motion both Relative and Real 

— Witness of Physics, and of Chemistry — Final Metaphysical 
Problem — The Being of the World " in Space " 214 



TABLE OF CONTEXTS. xm 

CHAPTER X 

FORCE AND CAUSATION 

Page 
The Dynamical View of the World — Force necessary in the Realiza- 
tion of all the Categories — Genesis of the Conception — Psycho- 
logical Objections answered — Force as Substantial Cause — The 
Conception of Modern Physics — Substitution of the Conception 
of Energy — Problem of Actio in Distans — Energy as Potential 
and Kinetic — Conservation and Correlation of Energy — The 
World not a mere Sum in Quantity — Qualitative Character of the 
Atoms — Bearing of the View upon the Nature of Reality . . . 253 

CHAPTER XI 

MEASURE AND QUANTITY 

Dependence of Science on these Categories — Implied that Nature is 
really measurable — Genesis of the Conception of Quantity — Ap- 
plication of the Category to Things — Realitivity of all Measure- 
ment — The Conceptions of the Euclidean — and of the Modern 
Geometry — Nature of Geometrical Axioms — Hints as to the 
Nature of Reality 294 

CHAPTER XII 

NUMBER AND UNITY 

Nature of the Category of Number — Counting the Essence of all 
Numbering — Genesis and Development of the Conception — 
Numerable Construction of Objects — The Metaphysical Truth 
implied — Criticism of the Kantian View — The Conception of 
Unity — The World as a Unity 318 

CHAPTER XIII 

FORMS AND LAWS 

Universality of these Categories — Reduction to the Conception of 
" Immanent Ideas " — " Pure Form " and " Pure Law " unmean- 
ing — These Conceptions transcendental — The Analogy of the 
Self implied — Anthropomorphism of Natural Science — Meaning 
of the term " Immanent " — Indisputable Nature of this Category 
— Review of the Meaning of Causality — The Reality of Forms 
and Laws in the Being of the World 337 



xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XIV 

TELEOLOGY 

Page 

Importance of the Discussion — Difference of Positions — Psychological 
Origin of the Conception — Application to the Self — Objection 
as Anthropomorphism — Kant's Treatment of Final Purpose — 
The Biological View — Illustrations — Objections examined — Re- 
lation to Principle of Mechanism — Idea of an " Ultimate Aim " 
— Unity of the World's Course implied 363 

CHAPTER XV 

SPHERES OF REALITY 

Results of preceding Analysis — Significance of the Conception jf Self- 
hood — Can a Self be Absolute? — Answer by the Theory of 
" Spheres of Reality " — Things as imperfect Selves — History of 
the Conception of Self — Spirit as Will and Idea — Conclusions 
as to Reality of an Absolute Self ,.394 

CHAPTER XVI 

MATTER 

Nature of this Conception — The Physicist's View examined — Experi- 
mental Genesis of the Conception — Matter as Mass — Matter as 
Substrate for Energy — Necessity of Union of the Two — Matter 
as having Inertia — Metaphysical Conception of Matter — Chemical 
Conception of Matter — The Atomic Theory — Mystical Concep- 
tion of Matter 419 

CHAPTER XVII 

NATURE AND SPIRIT 

Need of the Conception of " Nature " — Personification of Nature — 
Two-foldness of this Asolute Whole — Nature as the Source of 
Life — Theory of Evolution examined — Nature as a Life — Nature 
as Will and Idea 452 

CHAPTER XVIII 

THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 

Necessity of admitting Ideas — All Reality an Actualization of Ideas — 
This true of Things — The Self actualizes its own Ideas — The 
Actualization of Ideals — The Ideal Nature of the Absolute . . 473 



TABLE OF CONTENTS XV 

CHAPTER XIX 

THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 

Page 

Position of Different Metaphysical Systems — General Considerations 
stated — The Absolute not unrelated — but the Source of all Rela- 
tions — Relations to the World as Subject to its Object — The 
Absolute not mere Unity of Force — The Absolute as World- 
Ground — and as the Principle of all Becoming — Bearing of the 
Doctrine on Ethics and Religion — The Absolute as the Ground 
and the Source of Ideals — Ethical Objections to Monism answered 

— Theory of Identity denied ' . . 493 

CHAPTER XX 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 

Conclusions of Scientific Psychology — from the Physiological Point of 
View — and as Descriptive History of Mind — Metaphysical Treat- 
ment of the Same Subject — Problems raised as to the Being of 
the World — Possibility and Postulates of Knowledge Examined 

— All Conclusions summarized in a " Theory of Reality " . . .529 



INDEX ,553 



A THEORY OF REALITY 



CHAPTER I 

ON METAPHYSICS: ITS NATURE; ITS METHOD; AND THE 
PROPRIETY OF IT 

The right to attempt a systematic and detailed treatment 
of metaphysical problems is, at present, undoubtedly among 
the most difficult both to maintain and to exercise. And yet 
the reasons given to justify this difficulty are not, as is often 
assumed, convincing; nor are its true causes altogether 
obvious. The use, to their fullest extent, of his powers of 
reflection is conceded to be one of the most inalienable rights 
and highest privileges of rational man ; there is, indeed, 
scarcely any other obligation which the thoughtful feel to be 
so inherently sacred and even imperative. And surely the 
problems offered by the real existences and actual events 
known to his common, work-a-day experiences, as well as to 
the particular sciences, have not the lowest claims to make 
upon man's powers of reflection. But these are the distinc- 
tively metaphysical problems. 

If we inquire into the particular objections with which the 
very proposal to establish a metaphysical system is now cus- 
tomarily met, they appear to be partly inherent in the subject, 
and partly the effect of our modern environment. The 
weakness and pettiness, the errors and limitations of the 
human intellect, have always, since philosophy began, been 
remarked upon ; what wonder that they are emphasized anew, 

1 



Z A THEOEY OF REALITY 

if not exaggerated, in the mind of an age that so eagerly seeks 
the practical advantages and assured results of the positive 
sciences ? And do we not all feel, in a manner quite blasd, 
the weight of those burdens which belong to the very consti- 
tution of humanity ? Who of us has not at some time ex- 
claimed over the arrogance of assuming that it is possible to 
treat the insoluble riddles of existence to a critical analysis 
and a complete and authoritative synthesis ? Besides, have 
not certain most distinguished students of philosophy pro- 
nounced against the possibility of metaphysics as a system of 
ontology ? The impossibility of extending human cognition 
so as to have a valid conception of Reality — not to claim more 
— was the demonstrated conclusion of the incomparable 
author of the Critique of Pure Reason. Undoubtedly this 
agnostic negation of knowledge has been much more widely 
received by his followers than the ethical and religious faith 
which Kant hoped to establish by his use of the critical 
method. Nor can we forget that his immediate predecessor 
in the same method, the keenly analytic Hume, held so poor 
an opinion of human nature, when employed in ontological 
speculation, as to commend to the flames all treatises on 
" school metaphysics." 

One may accept or reject the current depreciation of the 
human intellect — either wholly or partially, and more or 
less intelligently — without once noticing several of the most 
important points at issue. As to the more complete justifica- 
tion of any particular view of the nature and limits of man's 
cognitive powers, we have little or nothing to say at present. 
The question of justification is, after all, an epistemological 
question ; it must be fought to an issue, on grounds of a 
theory of knowledge. But, if the epistemological problems 
be set aside for the time being, there are two or three rather 
remarkable eccentricities of opposition which the attempt at 
a systematic solution of the metaphysical problems is com- 
pelled to encounter. These eccentricities may be brought to 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 3 

the surface by asking — somewhat abruptly — the following 
question : Granted that the mind of man is finite, weak, liable 
to error, limited in capacity ; but what of it, in any especial 
way, so far as the student of systematic metaphysics is 
concerned ? "Why select the few thinkers whose unhappy 
destiny impels them to make the effort to bring into more 
scientific form the results of profound reflection over the 
problems of existence, and load upon them the entire odium 
of that restriction of rationality which is the universal lot of 
humanity ? In many instances they are of all men most keenly 
sensitive to the inherent and stubborn resistance which meta- 
physical studies offer to him who pursues them ardently. 
How limited and relatively helpless the reflecting mind is in 
the presence of some of the mysteries of Reality, no one else 
knows so indubitably as he who has done his best to explore 
these mysteries. Poets and novelists and essayists may speak 
freely on these problems ; why not avowed metaphysicians " of 
the school " also ? Must they alone be weighted down into 
silence and darkness by that " fear of erring " which, as Hegel 
so sagaciously says, may be the essence of " error itself" ? 

The insincerity of that scorn of systematic metaphysics 
which alleges in its own justification the limitations of human 
reason is made apparent by two lines of thinking. Both of 
these lead in pursuit of an explanation for facts of observation. 
The first of them comes to the conclusion that the rights of 
philosophizing cannot be admitted and the rights of that branch 
of philosophy which is properly called metaphysics be denied. 
In order to show this it is not necessary to repeat here what 
has been said elsewhere in detail as to the nature of phil- 
osophy and of its divisions. Nor is it necessary to pass in 
review the history of speculative thought, although this entire 
history illustrates and enforces our contention. Whatever 
conception one holds of the nature of philosophy, it is not pos- 
sible to exclude from the sphere of philosophy the critical and 
svstematic treatment of those concrete realities which are 



4 A THEORY OF REALITY 

somehow brought to an ideal Unity by all of man's development 
in knowledge. Let us admit that to philosophize is but to 
think reflectively — as profoundly and thoroughly as one can. 
In its more sceptical and critical forms, such thinking subjects 
to analysis all the assumptions and beliefs, as well as the 
alleged positive cognitions of ordinary experience and of the 
particular sciences. As synthetic and constructive, it aims at 
the harmony of all our particular experiences in some view of 
the world and of human life that shall be freed from internal 
contradictions, and that shall interpret and illumine them all. 
But that we are, and that things are — this is the fundamental 
fact, or net- work of facts, which, with its beliefs and assump- 
tions, challenges our reflective powers. And what we are, 
and what things are, what is the being which we and they 
share in common, — to tell this in a way that is truthful, rich 
in content, aesthetically inspiring, and morally helpful, is the 
goal of philosophical synthesis. But this is also the aim of 
metaphysical system. 

And, in fact, no one has ever philosophized to any extent, 
whether in the more technical and scholastic fashion or as the 
most timid and self-distrustful of laymen, without involving in 
his own reflections some attempt at a theory of reality. 
Pure positivism is impossible for any mind that reflects. 
Scepticism aud criticism that both begin and end in merely 
being sceptical and critical are intolerable for the human in- 
tellect. By this it is not meant simply that they are aesthet- 
tically distasteful or ethically unsatisfying; although they are, 
in fact, both. But the rather is it obvious that positivism puts 
a strain of self-reservation and distrust upon human reason 
which cannot be borne for any length of time. Neither is it 
possible to cultivate epistemology without metaphysics, any 
more than it is to develop metaphysics without epistemologi- 
cal views or assumptions. We know, indeed, that Kant 
thought he had proved metaphysics, as ontology, forever 
impossible. Thus, in his opinion, after the entire task of 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AXD PROPRIETY 5 

Critique was performed, in the three branches of speculative 
reason, philosophy of conduct, and principles controlling 
judgments of taste, nothing remained to represent the ancient 
discipline of ontological philosophy but a collection of those 
concepts which had survived the critical process. For a vital 
theory of reality there had been substituted a logical co- 
ordination of mere forms of thinking. All the life, the 
power, the interest, of reflective effort had gone into criticism. 
For metaphysics there remained only a collection of fossils. 
The bones, carefully cleansed from all the decay of empir- 
icism, well polished with long continued friction from dialec- 
tics, and firmly and skilfully articulated, are put on exhibition 
by the metaphysical systematizer. But where is the man, 
with his life-blood, and nervous energy, and entire dynamic 
outfit — ready for commerce with the wilful and baffling 
concrete realities of daily experience ? 

Kant did not live to complete his scheme for a systematic 
display of the results reached by the critical method, as he 
himself conceived of metaphysics, its nature, and its possibility. 
He evidently regarded this work as light and relatively unim- 
portant after the task of criticism had been thoroughly clone. 
But if he had accomplished what he, to the last, kept it in 
mind to do for metaphysical system, his real opinions as to 
the nature of the transcendental world would not have 
been a whit clearer or more defensible. For this " school 
metaphysics" — this classified arrangement of concepts that 
had been shown to furnish the a priori forms for all objective 
cognition — ivould not have coincided with his own heartfelt 
theory of reality. Who that has studied the critical philos- 
sophy thoroughly does not know that its whole structure is 
pervaded with ontological cognitions, beliefs, and opinions ? 
The private emotional and practical metaphysics of Kant — 
so to speak — is the very warp of the texture into which he 
weaves with such astonishing intricacy the woof of his critical 
tenets. This warp is not a critical doctrine of the categories, 



6 A THEORY OF REALITY 

but a collection of aesthetical and ethical sentiments, of threads 
that mark the projections of a noble and strenuous personality 
into the being of things, and of unanalyzed assumptions or 
cognitions. Kant's unrecognized or half-concealed tenets as 
to the real Being of the World are at once more acceptable to 
reason and better to live and to die by than his completed 
catalogue of the categories would have been. For the " faith " 
which Kant made " room for " has no less of defensible 
knowledge in it than the " knowledge " he aimed to remove 
had of rational faith. 

And what is true of the results of reflection in the case of 
the founder of modern critical philosophy is true of the 
results of all human reflection. Hegel may perhaps justly be 
charged with a certain " arrogance of reason," which, it is 
assumed, has of late properly fallen into disrepute. But if 
the charge be just, it does not lie against this thinker simply 
because he believed in the possibility of metaphysics as a valid 
theory of reality, or because he made the attempt to realize 
this possibility in a systematic way. The weaknesses and limi- 
tations of human reason in general no more discredit the 
Logik and the Religionspfiilosophie of Hegel than they discredit 
the Kritik der reinen Vernunft of Kant, or the reflections of 
the most prominent advocate of agnosticism at the present 
time. Mr. Herbert Spencer's philosophy, for example, is onto- 
logical from centre to circumference and from beginning to 
end. It is, indeed, one of the most stupendous and self-confi- 
dent systems of metaphysics which have ever been evolved. 

In a word, we cannot consistently maintain and defend the 
right of man to think reflectively without including in this also 
the right to attempt a systematic metaphysics, — that is, some 
preferred rational and unifying view of the world of real 
beings and actual events. The mere critic in philosophy, like 
the mere critic in art or in literature, may be quite as 
arrogant in self-confidence, and as inconsistent in his distrust 
of other human faculty than his own, as the most pronounced 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 7 

dogmatist. Indeed, criticism in philosophy without a meta- 
physical standpoint is impossible. All philosophical scepticism 
and agnosticism is necessarily ontological. The moment the 
phenomenalism the positivist, becomes genuinely philosophical, 
he indulges himself in metaphysics. It would seem, then, that 
the place for the consistent scorner of all attempts at a theory 
of reality lies wholly outside the boundaries of philosophy. 

But now the second class of those eccentricities of behavior 
which characterize certain deniers of the rights of metaphysics 
becomes apparent. For there are many facts of observation 
which lead to the following somewhat startling conclusion: 
voluntarily to abandon philosophy and openly to renounce all 
the rights of reflective thinking does not relieve one from a 
certain inescapable obligation to be metaphysical. And here 
it seems most strange that the real intent and the valid con- 
clusion — if we accept it at all — of the Kantian criticism 
has been so lost out of the regard of the modern objector to 
systematic metaphysics. This intent was not to enhance the 
objections to a rational faith in God and in the freedom and 
immortality of the human soul. It was, the rather, to render 
these objections permanently hors du combat in the battle 
that is forever being waged between certain kinds of Idealism, 
or Supernaturalism, and a common-sense or scientific Natural- 
ism. All the way through the Critique of Pure Reason 
Kant's sceptical and agnostic positions bear most heavily 
against the ontological metaphysics of natural science and 
of the man whose horizon is confined to the things of sense. 
It is not the believer in God, freedom, and immortality, 
but the hard-headed denier of these realities on grounds of 
confidence in his theoretical construction of a system of 
mere things, whose vitals are pierced with the sword of the 
Kantian criticism. 

It is just here that an unprejudiced survey of the facts 
becomes especially instructive. For the " plain man's " con- 
sciousness is always and inevitably metaphysical ; it is 



8 A THEORY OF REALITY 

generally not sceptical and agnostic. Besides the merit of 
suggesting a point in the psychological theory of vision, 
which has already been transcended, this was the only con- 
tribution made to human thinking by the Berkeley an idealism ; 
it insisted upon the truth that, for the ordinary consciousness, 
the concrete reality is just this sensuously envisaged object, 
and no " thing-in-itself " that must be reached by some pro- 
cess of inference, or by intermediation of some idea. The 
later Scottish realism did not improve upon, but rather 
travestied, the view of Berkeley when it began to identify this 
known reality of the object with the excited sensorium. Nor 
did Kant better matters on this point when he covered up the 
whole inquiry by taking " data " of sense for granted, and 
obscurely referring to some dumb and unmeaning " thing-in- 
itself " as the giver of these data. For, twist the facts as 
psychology without metaphysics may, it cannot get rid of the 
truth : there is a ivhole system of ontological doctrine concealed 
in every maris work-a-day experience with things. Experi- 
ence itself is transcendent of the subject of experience, — 
truly ontological. To tell how such experience is possible, 
this was the problem of the Critique of Pure Reason. 
But because its answer laid all the emphasis on the analysis 
of the subject, the knower, and did not share the undy- 
ing confidence of men that the object, that which is known, 
belongs in all its complicated structure to the world of reality, 
this Critique failed to satisfy the demands of consciousness. 

That our experience with ourselves and with things is 
complexly ontological, and cannot even be described, much 
less explained, in terms of subjective idealism, we have shown 
elsewhere 1 both from the psychological and the epistemologi- 
cal points of view. The more detailed description and specu- 
lative treatment of experience as thus ontological constitutes 
the very warp and woof of any system of metaphysics. What, 
however, it is now desirable to insist upon is this : in the 

1 In " The Philosophy of Knowledge," passim. 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 9 

very having of cognitive experience, the knower is consciously 
metaphysical. The knower envisages, or infers, or helieves 
in, his little sphere of realities. It is for him somewhat of a 
genuine cosmos, an orderly whole. The " World " man 
knows is made up of real things and real minds that stand in 
actual relations, that change these relations, that come to be, 
and continue in being, in space and time ; and these present 
realities constantly influence each other, and they pass 
away to give place to other realities. To reflect upon all 
this, or upon any part of it, is to indulge in ontological specu- 
lation. For the trans- subjective does not lie in the invisible 
and the unknown, where Kant placed it ; nor is experience 
with concrete realities to be resolved into a series of ap- 
pearances, as Mr. Bradley would seem to have us believe. 
To understand, as fully as man's powers may, the things of 
human work-a-day experience, the realities cognized by the 
plain man's consciousness, — this is the endeavor of system- 
atic metaphysics. What strange inconsistency, then, is in- 
volved in the enforced acceptance of a half-developed onto- 
logical consciousness when it denies the right to attempt the 
free expansion and more harmonious development of the 
same ontological consciousness ! 

Yet more eccentric do certain objections to systematic meta- 
phvsics appear to one who observes the facts of modern 
science. Speculation about the real nature of things, and the 
insensible causes of events, is nowhere so abundant or so 
daring as within the domain of modern science. But the 
proper name for all such theorizing is " metaphysics." In 
the circles where such speculation is most rife, it is also most 
honored, — but only if it be not called by its legitimate name. 
Consider, for example, how many "theories" of evolution 
have arisen and are still advocated among the most advanced 
of the biologists ; or again, how many " theories " have been 
put forward and are still defended by chemists and physicists 
as to the ultimate constitution of matter, and as to the forces 



10 A THEORY OF REALITY 

and laws which have secured its differentiation into the 
things of ordinary experience. These theories are by no 
means wary, not to say modest, in their demands for " Space," 
" Time," and " Force," and even for a great variety of most 
curiously and intricately constructed entities. No equivocal 
theory of cognition disturbs the average speculator upon 
these subjects, in the boldest flights of his imagination. 
Few rebukes for excessive trust in the ontological insights or 
inferences of faulty human reason are awakened among the 
learned brotherhood in the scientific society before which his 
speculations are discussed. 

It would seem, then, that the objections felt to systematic 
metaphysics must find some other justification than the imma- 
nent and irremovable weakness of man's faculties of reflection. 
For this reason, consistently carried through, would not only 
limit unduly philosophical speculation, but would discredit all 
reflection upon the facts of every-day experience and check 
all scientific hypothesis and theorizing. And, indeed, no 
fixed distinction can be made between ordinary knowledge 
and scientific knowledge, or between scientific knowledge and 
philosophical knowledge. Every attempt at every kind of 
knowledge assumes to start on terms of good faith with human 
reason. All alleged knowledge implies ontological judgment 
and ontological inference. All actual knowledge is pene- 
trated with fragments of metaphysics, is based upon and shot 
through and through with some theory of reality. Systematic 
metaphysics is indeed a difficult, and, in its perfection, an 
impossible attainment. The reasons for this difficulty un- 
doubtedly lie, in part, in the inherent weakness and inescap- 
able limitations of the human mind. But these reasons do 
not afford sufficient causes why any attempt at thorough and 
comprehensive ontological speculation should be distrusted, 
much less derided. 

If now attention be turned to certain causes in the present 
environment of the intending metaphysician, the explanation 



METAPHYSICS: MATURE. METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 11 

of the reception awarded him becomes more obvious. Thor- 
ough and painstaking discussion of the problems of existence 
has never been popular. It is probably not to be expected, 
even if it were to be desired, that it ever will be popular. It 
is not sinister or ungenerous to observe, with Eucken. 2 that the 
common understanding feels toward every system of phi- 
losophy that concealed hatred which it feels toward all the 
higher products of reason. The contempt for metaphysics in 
the popular mind is akin to the contempt for fine art and 
refined conduct. This "common understanding'* finds no 
blems and no mysteries in most of the concrete beings and 
actual events of life. But some of these beings, and not a 
few of these events, force themselves upon the attention of 
the untutored man as pregnant with a meaning he cannot com- 
prehend, or as bearing a message from the invisible to which 
he cannot find the key. If this common understanding is 
superstitious it bows itself before the fellow-man who professes 
to have solved such profound problems, to have unlocked the 
door that leads inward to such mysterious secrets. The well- 
trained and reverential mind receives with a cautious gratitude 
every well-meant attempt to throw any light of truth upon 
man's pathway. In this day and in our Occidental civiliza- 
tion, however, the common understanding is not consciously 
superstitious : nor are the minds of the multitude yet trained 
into a reverential attitude toward those problems of existence 
which modern science has rendered all the more mysterious 
and profound. Is it not due to a lack of refinement and of a 
reverent spirit, at least in part, that men generally have no 
greater regard for the systematic study of such problems ? 

We have already remarked upon certain eccentricities of 
opposition to every attempt at a systematic metaphysics which 
are met within the domain of the natural and physical sciences, 
Yet here it often happens that special and extravagant meta- 
physical theories are most abundant, and most highly prized. 

- See " Geschichte und Kritik der Grundbegrifie der Gegen^rarr," p. 3$. 



12 A THEORY OF REALITY 

The causes for this unfavorable attitude of the modern sci- 
entific mind toward " school metaphysics " — to borrow the 
scornful term of Hume — are chiefly historical. Impartially 
estimated they may lead one to distribute the blame about 
equally between the " scientists " and the metaphysicians. 
On the one side are a very natural overestimate of the value 
of mere collections of facts, a certain confusion as to the extent 
to which the descriptive history of things affords a complete 
satisfaction to our intellectual interests, an undervaluation of 
the part which sesthetical and quasi-ethical considerations are 
entitled to play in all the growth of science, and, too often, a 
pitiful lack of training to the faculties which impart true 
insight, and which must be especially exercised in carrying 
the race forward to the realization of its highest ideals. On 
the other side are faults even more conspicuous and irritating, 
because more opposed to the Zeitgeist, although perhaps not 
less natural and pardonable. How much disregard of the 
established truths of science, and how much shuffling and 
playing fast and loose with facts, belongs to the past history 
of " school metaphysics " ! What lack of scientific method — 
that most fundamental point of agreement between science 
and philosophy — has been shown by many of the most elab- 
orate system-makers ! But who that has read the technical 
" history of philosophy " needs to be reminded of all this ? 
There is, indeed, little reason to wonder, then, that modern 
physics, chemistry and biology, and systematic metaphysics, 
have got into an attitude of mutual distrust and depreciation. 
But the causes of this attitude are not irremovable. And there 
are some plain and grateful signs of an approaching reconcili- 
ation and readjustment of these so disturbed relations. 

The student of systematic metaphysics need not especially 
take to heart the attitude toward his pursuit assumed by the 
so-called " literary world." In these days all the froth and 
scum of human life is rising to the surface in the stream of 
what is called literature. Any serious reflection upon the 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 13 

problems of existence, of life and of mind, is rather to be 
expected from the most uncultured of the men of sober spirit 
than from the producers and the consumers of these myriads of 
books. Of all men, perhaps, the genuine devotee to literature 
most needs the help of a mind that has reflected profoundly 
upon fundamental problems. On the other hand, the student 
of metaphysics neglects his own choicest material if he does 
not recognize the truth that in history and in literature the 
Reality whose exposition he undertakes makes some of its 
supreme revelations to attentive and sympathetic souls. For 
the present, however, he who attempts such a systematic 
exposition or theory of this reality must probably be content 
with the neglect or the scorn of the litterateurs. And this he 
can well enough afford to do. ^ 

Some of the most persistent difficulties that belong to the 
present environment of the student of systematic metaphysics 
are found on quasi-ethical or religious grounds. The long- 
time subordination of the metaphysics of ethics and of reli- 
gion to established systems of theology has now been virtually 
overcome. That lofty patronage of the practical life of 
morals and of religion which consists in claiming all assured 
knowledge for science and for philosophy, and in leaving to 
the practical life only the shifting drift of sentiment, is surely 
destined, even in its more modern and revised form, to yield 
unsatisfactory results. Nor can any of the so-called " recon- 
ciliations " of science and religion which leave untouched the 
ontological foundations of both hope to remain permanent. 
Notwithstanding, the interests of philosophy, on the one hand, 
and of the theory and practice of morals and of the religious 
life on the other, can never be separated. Religion is, in its 
very nature and essence, metaphysical. Its fundamental 
assumptions arise out of the naive and undisciplined ontologi- 
cal consciousness. Its faiths are, partially at least, to be 
explained as the feeling-full and practical solution of some 
of the profoundest problems of life and of mind. To reflect 



14 A THEORY OF REALITY 

upon these assumptions and these faiths, and to attempt to 
understand them in relation to all the other parts of our 
complex human experience, is as inevitable a consequence of 
the possession of rationality as is any other form of reflective 
thinking. 

We are far enough from holding that the study of system- 
atic metaphysics will make men good or truly religious. Nor 
do we cherish the expectation that, in the millennium, all 
righteous and pious souls will properly appreciate a Facli- 
philosophie. But to think soberly and thoroughly deepens 
and enriches the life of conduct and the development of char- 
acter. It is indeed a species of conduct in which every mind 
is obligated to take some share. It is also a most important 
factor and disciplinary agent in the development of character. 
And in estimating the influences which direct the evolution 
of the mental and moral life of the race, and which color the 
deeper-lying parts of the stream of human consciousness, it 
is likely that the present age undervalues the reigning 
systems of metaphysics. Ontological speculations are not 
usually, at the first, impressive phenomena. Many of them, 
indeed, disappear beneath the ongoing currents of human 
life, — the commercial, the political, the ecclesiastical, the so- 
called practical interests, — without leaving so much as a 
single trace behind. But after all, they are not therefore 
necessarily inoperative or wholly lost. And sometimes, when 
they have fortunately found certain receptive minds, and have 
succeeded in coloring all the thoughts of these minds, they 
filter silently through a few first disciples into the popular 
currents of opinion. Thus Plato and Aristotle swayed 
mightily the lives of many thousands, in the Middle Ages, 
who had never heard their names ; and they have not relin- 
quished their grasp upon the views and conduct of men even 
to the present day. Thus, too, myriads of the common people 
are at this moment profoundly influenced by the philosopher 
of Kb'nigsberg, who have rarely or never heard the name of 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 15 

Kant. And what is so largely true of these great reflective 
thinkers is true in a lesser degree of all attempts to under- 
stand the profounder problems of life and of mind. For such is 
the relation between these attempts and the theory and prac- 
tice of morals and religion that the two cannot be divorced. 

It is not our present purpose to draw practical lessons from 
what has just been declared true. Of all theoretical pursuits 
theology is most dependent upon metaphysics. Of all kinds 
of faiths the religious are most assuredly, either wholly 
illusory or fundamentally ontological. Of all professions the 
ministry can least afford to decry a just use of reason in the 
pursuit of speculative philosophy. And in the last analysis, 
ethics feels most keenly the need of a ground in some view of 
the universe which shall make the sanctions and the issues of 
conduct lie embedded in the heart of reality. We conclude, 
then, that the causes of the present opposition to systematic 
metaphysics which originate in circles whose chief interests 
are in matters of morality and religion do not constitute a 
justification. And this is true whether the opposition bears 
the marks of an odium theologicum or of a no less bitter and 
unreasoning odium antitheologicum. 

We may now summarize this somewhat lengthy survey of 
notable facts in the following expression of opinion. It is 
not particularly difficult to discover some of the chief causes 
in which originate the peculiar obstacles that must be met by 
any attempt in the present day at a systematic treatment of 
metaphysical problems. But these causes do not appear to 
constitute valid reasons against making the attempt. The 
right to have some ontological view that shall, at least, measur- 
ably and in one's own opinion, unify and harmonize one's expe- 
riences with the world of things and of minds is an essential 
part of the right to subject experience to the process of reflective 
thinking. Nor does there seem any good reason why this right 
should be allowed to the particular sciences, in their own 
peculiar domains, without claiming it also for the domain of 



16 A THEORY OF REALITY 

all those realities with the particular kinds of which these 
sciences customarily deal. And when we turn from objections 
which seem inherent in reason itself to objections which dif- 
ferent sorts of people put forth to embarrass the would-be 
metaphysician, Ave find even less of force and validity in them. 
Indeed it is true that the very people who need metaphysics 
most, often have least care and scantiest respect for it. 
Nevertheless, it also remains forever true that scepticism and 
criticism and history and encyclopaedia of philosophy do not 
fully satisfy those cravings out of which philosophy grows ; 
nor do they fulfil all those functions in the exercise of which 
philosophy consists. Ontological speculation is an essential 
function of the human reason. 

It appears, then, that systematic metaphysics may be — 
nay, must be — indulged in for the satisfaction of reason 
and for the support furnished by a ground of reflection to the 
life of conduct, of art, and of religion. But it is, as we shall 
see later, the spirit and the method of it which need most 
careful scrutiny. And, as a matter of fact, it is against a 
wrong spirit, either obvious or suspected, and against a false 
or unsatisfactory method, that most of the sincere current 
objections are raised. 

Thus far much has been implied, but little said of a precise 
sort about the nature of metaphysics. Nor does it seem as 
though a lengthy disquisition on this subject were necessary, 
even in a work proposing a systematic treatment of meta- 
physical problems. Certainly, the philological, historical, 
or discursive introductions which are common at the thresh- 
old of such an attempt have little of real value. The name 
employed for the thing (metaphysics = fxera ra fyvaiica) is 
apparently of accidental origin, and is due to the fact that the 
writings of Aristotle on " First Principles " were given a 
local position following his writings on natural objects. But 
before Aristotle, and indeed from the very beginnings of re- 
flective thinking, philosophy was ontological ; although more 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 17 

immediately preceding him, it took the form of a discur- 
sive examination of the concepts which sum up, as it were, 
men's knowledge of things, events, and relations. The im- 
portant thing to notice in this connection is that metaphysics 
should be based on experience with real things and actual events, 
and that it should " follow," in docility and yet in free critical 
spirit, " upon " the particular sciences which treat of real 
things and actual events. But this is something which 
philology can neither teach nor help us to attain. 

The importance of taking in detail the opinions of others 
as to the precise definition of metaphysics is also not great. 
The expression of these opinions differs ; the real thing re- 
mains the same. We may take our point of starting from 
Ribot's remark : " Metaphysics is but a most noble and 
elevated manner of conceiving things." Or we may confess 
to the impulse of Matthew Arnold when he declares : " We 
want first to know what being is." From these or similar 
captivating and popular ways of stating the problem and the 
method of metaphysics, we may pass to such carefully wrought 
conceptions as that of Mr. Hodgson. According to this 
author, 1 metaphysics — most dependent and " unfixed " of 
sciences, yet slowly and surely winning its way — is " the 
analysis of states of consciousness in connection with their 
objects ; the objective aspect as a whole being summed up in 
the word < existence.' " Or if this seems to throw too much 
emphasis on the psychological and epistemological approaches 
to the problems of metaphysics, we may for the moment 
adopt the definition of another author. " By metaphysics we 
understand the scientific doctrine which, from the sensuously 
perceptible appearance of things, draws conclusions as to 
their conceptual essence, in order to gain a true insight into 
the real being of things in the world, and of the world itself." 2 
This definition is, indeed, somewhat too stilted ; and it intro- 

1 See " Time and Space," I., pp. 3 f and 72 f. 

2 Low, System der Uniyersalphilosophie, p. 4. 

2 



18 A THEORY OF REALITY 

duces rather prematurely that distinction between appearance 
and reality upon which another more recent treatise on meta- 
physics has based itself. It may further be objected that we 
are not as yet by any means sure whether an understanding 
of the " conceptual essence " will, of itself, afford the de- 
sirable insight into " the real being of things." But one can 
well afford to be lenient in respect of such particulars. And 
when the same writer expresses the intent of metaphysics to 
be " a general investigation of that essential being which 
belongs in common to all things," we clearly recognize the 
same difficult task as that which is lying before us. Yet 
again, we may say with Rosmini ; l " Philosophy is the 
science of ultimate grounds." It is " the work of reflection 
carried forward to the discovery of ultimate grounds . . . 
and things real must be treated in the doctrine of ultimate 
grounds." 

Breaking free for the moment from all historical and 
technical definition, let us affirm : To get at reality — this is 
the aim of metaphysics. But this is as well the aim of all 
knowledge, quoad knowledge. Yet each particular kind of 
knowledge, or particular cognitive achievement, has an aim 
beyond itself ; and this more ulterior aim may be expressed 
as the right adjustment of the Self to the concrete real things 
of experience. Both these aims — the more distinctly cog- 
nitive, and the more purely practical through the cognitive — 
are pursued in their relations to each other by every man. 
Men do not deal with " Reality " as an abstraction, a mere 
idea; they concern themselves with the infinitely varied 
realities of daily life. The value of these aims is as true of 
systematic metaphysics as it is of every-day knowledge, or 
of the more subtle and refined investigations of the particular 
sciences. The plain man, the man of science, and the meta- 
physician a la mode, are all trying to accomplish essentially 
the same thing ; they are all trying to know reality, — more 

1 Philosophical System : Translated by Thomas Davidson, p. 1 f. 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 19 

assuredly that it is, and more fully what it is. They are all 
also trying by means of this knowledge to get themselves 
and others into more favorable adjustments to the infinitely 
varied changes in human relations to concrete realities. 

For the basic experience of the plain man, of the man of 
science, and of the metaphysician " of the school," is essen- 
tially the same. With all three the data of experience and 
the aims of life are essentially the same : Here am " I " ; 
there art " thou " ; and over yonder, not to be identified 
with either of us, are the " things " which determine our re- 
lations and make for our weal and woe. You and I are con- 
nected with each other ; the things are connected with one 
another ; and both of us are connected with many, or with 
all the things — in an intricate net- work of changing and 
inter-dependent states. I am real ; thou art real ; the things 
are real ; and there do actually exist manifold relations 
amongst these realities ; while infinitely varied changes are 
taking place in all. What am I really f What art thou ? 
and what are they — those things, that make up, together 
with us, our known world of reality ? And what is this X 
that somehow guarantees — if we may so speak — and en- 
forces this system of changing relations ? Whoever raises 
any of these problems asks metaphysical questions. Who- 
ever, whether by assumption, by theory, by so-called faith, or 
by conduct, answers any of them is a metaphysician. He 
who, having an acquaintance with the history of speculative 
opinion and taking to his account the many sides of seeming 
contradiction and the various lights and shadows of judgment, 
pursues to some systematic conclusion the study of these 
problems, is a metaphysician " of the school." Schopenhauer 
is as truly scholastic as Hegel ; Herbert Spencer is no less 
professional than was Immanuel Kant. 

Systematic metaphysics is, then, the necessary result of 
patient, orderly, well-informed, and prolonged study of those 
ultimate problems which are proposed to every reflective 



20 A THEORY OF REALITY 

mind by the real existences and actual transactions of selves 
and of things. Thus considered it appears as the least ab- 
stract and foreign to concrete realities of all the higher pur- 
suits of reason. Mathematics is abstract ; logic is abstract ; 
mathematical and so-called " pure " physics are abstract. 
But metaphysics is bound by its very nature and calling 
always to keep near to the actual and to the concrete. Dive 
into the depths of speculation, it indeed may; and its ocean 
is boundless in expanse and deep beyond all reach of human 
plummets. But it finds its place of standing, for every new 
turn of daring exploration, on some bit of solid ground. For 
it is actuality which it wishes to understand — although in 
reflective and interpretative way. To quote from Professor 
Royce : " The basis of our whole theory is the bare, brute fact 
of experience which you have always with you, namely, the 
fact : Something is real. Our question is : What is this 
reality ? or, again, What is the ultimately real ? " 1 

At this point, however, the true nature and legitimate 
method of metaphysics cannot be understood without plac- 
ing its speculations in right relations with two other domains 
of thought. One of these is the domain covered in common by 
the particular sciences ; the other is that provided by a closely 
allied branch of philosophy. Each of the particular sciences 
has, indeed, its own metaphysics. Its positive findings as to 
what is real involve certain general assumptions and thought- 
forms of a universal applicability. Physics and chemistry 
both assume and demonstrate the truthfulness of certain 
conceptions of space, time, number, force, relation, law, etc. 
What the students of these sciences mean by the " truthful- 
ness" of these conceptions is their legitimate and successful 
application to the particular realities with which the sciences 
deal. Under these conceptions they know the beings and 
transactions which constitute their own data; and their growing 
knowledge is the amplification and correction, in application 
to concrete realities, of these same conceptions. 

1 The Conception of God, p. 207. 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 21 

What is true of the sciences which deal with things is 
equally true of the sciences which deal with minds, or with 
both minds and things. They all both assume and demon- 
strate the truthfulness of certain conceptions, in their appli- 
cation to the concrete realities with which they have to deal. 
Now, then, if this is true of every one of the particular 
sciences, what is left for metaphysics to accomplish, either 
as a system of assured cognitions, or as a valid theory of 
reality ? 

It is just at the point where the inquiry now started makes 
its appearance that the ministrations of metaphysics become 
useful and even imperative. For metaphysics receives these 
conceptions as they are assumed, applied, and expanded, by 
the particular sciences, and makes them the objects of a 
further reflective study. Such reflective study has its justi- 
fication in the attempt to reach two important ends. One of 
these is the end of harmony and of unification ; the other is 
the end of insight and of interpretation. 

It is natural, and on the whole conducive to the advance 
of human knowledge, for each of the positive sciences to 
define as precisely as possible its own leading conceptions, 
and to endeavor so to extend the application of them, thus 
defined, as to include larger and yet larger areas of phenom- 
ena. As those many interrelations amongst the sciences 
which are justified by the real connections of their phe- 
nomena become more obvious, a certain theoretical unifica- 
tion is inevitable. In this way the world of experience is 
conceived of as a Unity — as a system of related beings 
that share in each other's essential characteristics and some- 
how rest upon a common " World-Ground." But, in fact, 
no one of the particular sciences, as such, is competent to 
undertake the perfection of this work of unification. In 
fact, also, the attempt at such unifying in terms of any one 
science results in no little misrepresentation of facts, and in 
the extension of science only falsely so-called. The attempt 



22 A THEORY OF REALITY 

to take the part of general metaphysics by the devotees of 
any one of the particular sciences favors schemes for " pick- 
ing and stealing " from each other ; or it results in gigantic 
plans for the robbery of entire domains, after the fashion of 
the barons of the Middle Ages. Is not the age familiar 
enough, for example, with proposals for a mathematical theory 
of the universe, which shall reduce all reality under the 
categories of number and quantity, formulate the equations 
which must avail between minds and spirits, and plot the 
curve along which the Absolute is destined to move in its 
endless round of self-creations and self-destructions ? Has 
not physics repeatedly tried to reduce chemistry to the condi- 
tion of a subject ; and have not we psychologists — only, 
alas! too, persuasively — been promised salvation from our 
chronic irregularities of growth, if only we will become abso- 
lutely dependent branches on the flourishing trunk of modern 
evolutionary biology ? 

The work of systematic metaphysics with the categories of 
the particular sciences, is the work both of critic and of 
arbiter. The facts admitted and proved by them all, it freely 
admits. For its business is to reflect upon the world of fact. 
The generalizations of the particular sciences, and the more 
precise forms of the leading conceptions employed by them 
all, it receives with caution and yet with the greatest docil- 
ity. But to compare these generalizations, these more pre- 
cise forms of the categories, with one another, to scrutinize 
each in the light of all, and to subject them to further reflec- 
tion in the interests of harmony and unification — this is the 
very essence of the life of metaphysics. 

The work of systematic metaphysics is also a work of 
interpretation. Concerning "Reality" — that is, concerning 
all real things and minds and all actual events — we ask 
not only to be assured that it is, and what it is, but we 
should like to know its meaning. All cognition is, to a 
greater or less extent, interpretative. I do not know you, 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 23 

what you really are, unless I have known, and may 
continue to know, what you mean. It is interpretation of 
your past expressions which enables me to form the con- 
ception of what you really are. And if I cannot interpret 
the different successive impressions into terms of some con- 
sistent theory. I can never know your real being. Your 
being, so far forth, must remain an insoluble riddle to me. 
And what is true of minds in their relations to one another 
is also true of things in their relations to minds. I may state 
what that chair over yonder really is. in terms of ordinary 
knowledge or in terms of the sciences of mechanics, physics, 
chemistry, and so on. But unless I interpret it as an invita- 
tion to sit down, and as a promise of safety and of rest in 
case I so make use of it, I do not know all that the chair 
really is. In the event of anything coming into relations of 
knowledge with me, or even being proposed as a possible 
object of my knowledge, I am intellectually and practically 
bound to ask the question : What does this particular thing 
mean? What shall I understand by it ? The answer to the 
inquiry for interpretation, even if it come only in the form 
of a rational guess or a promising surmise, always throws 
some beam of light back upon the real nature of the object 
of cognition. Indeed, man's whole world of reality — and this 
never means anything more than the complex of beings and 
events which he knows, with all that seems to him impli- 
cated in this complex — is a problem for his interpretation 
as well as for cognition of hare facts and mere laws. It, 
too, — the Eeality which this world is — needs to have the 
inquiry as to its meaning raised. And so far forth as 
this inquiry is raised, and can be answered, so far does 
man know more essentially and completely what his total 
world of experience really is. 

Xow we are far enough from being able to interpret com- 
pletely the meaning of any single thing, or of any particular 
event. That stone or clod beneath our feet, that wretched 



24 A THEORY OF REALITY 

and narrow mind just encountered on the street, that trifling 
event of the door-bell ringing or of the snow sliding from the 
roof, we can never know, under any of the categories or in 
terms of any of the sciences, to perfection. Whatever it is,, 
and whatever it means, each thing and each event is, and 
means, far too much for any human mind fully to compass it 
with cognition or with conjectures. And, of course, the full 
meaning of the whole world of beings and events, even as they 
are caught and confined in the net- work of the categories, is far 
beyond all human comprehension or all the most adroit and 
daring of human hypotheses. Nevertheless, human knowledge 
is increased, and human living is made higher and nobler, by 
the judicious use of interpretation. Even man's guesses as to 
what is the meaning of the world and of human life, if the 
guesses are made in accordance with the demands of right 
reason and in the interests of righteous conduct, may enable 
him to know reality the better. And it is certain that where 
the meaning of what is known as actual is even partially and 
dubiously determined in accordance with the facts of experience, 
the knowledge of the nature of what is actual is enhanced. 

The positive sciences are wont to disclaim that method of 
investigation which might be called " following the clue of the 
interpretative idea." Nevertheless they have, in fact and as 
their history abundantly shows, gained most of all they pos- 
sess in this very way. But what the positive sciences do for 
particular classes of facts, and without full consciousness of 
either method or mission, metaphysics tries to do, with fuller 
consciousness of both method and mission, for the whole 
world of facts. This is, indeed, a bold venture. But when 
it is said, " We want to know what being is" does not this 
include, in part, " We want to know what being means " ? 

The two considerations just brought forward enable us to 
regard the problem of systematic metaphysics from a some- 
what different point of view. Critical and speculative study 
does, indeed, concern itself with realities, and with realities 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 25 

only, — that they are, what they are, and what they mean. 
But its approach to these realities, in their concrete forms of 
differentiation, their particular relations, their special signifi- 
cances and uses, is not by any means so direct and immediate 
as that which is demanded for the purposes of our daily living 
or of the positive sciences. The "stuff" out of which the 
structure of an ontological theory is to be built is not re- 
ceived raw and at first hand, as it were. It is received after 
being already worked over by the concurrent intellectual 
processes of many generations, and after having long-time 
ago entered into the entire life of man. The subject-matter 
of metaphysical system is the so-called categories, as far as 
they are universally applied to real beings and to actual 
events ; it is the forms of human knowledge considered as the 
forms of reality. This is, in part, what was meant when it 
was pointed out that the conceptions which the common con- 
sciousness and the particular sciences assume to be valid, and 
find valid, for all concrete realities, need a subsequent work 
of criticism, of unifying, and of interpretation. 

It requires only a modicum of insight to discover that the 
structure of every metaphysical system, like the work of every 
individual cognition, — no matter how insignificant and how 
isolated the object of such individual act of knowing may 
seem to be — rests upon a foundation of assumption. Meta- 
physics deals with the forms of all knowledge " considered as " 
the forms of all reality ; ergo it is inevitably assumed that 
the forms of knowledge are the forms of reality. To discover 
this assumption, by a complete analysis of human cognitive 
consciousness ; to discover its genesis, and to validate it, as 
far as possible, for all experience ; to reduce the assumption 
to such proportions that no attack from any quarter can lay 
hold upon it for its destruction ; to exhibit in detail its signifi- 
cance for the life of the knower and for the implied nature of 
his object of knowledge — all this, and more of the same sort 
of philosophical discussion, belongs to epistemology. A theory 



26 A THEORY OF REALITY 

•of knowledge is as agnostic as possible at the beginning ; it is 
designedly and definitively sceptical and critical all the way 
through. But the very proposal to frame a theory of reality 
renders impossible and absurd the continuance in the agnostic 
and sceptical attitude toward human cognition. Systematic 
metaphysics must enter upon its attempt to treat the cate- 
gories of reality in a critical and harmonizing and interpre- 
tative way, by a complete abandonment of the persistently 
sceptical and agnostic points of view. Its task is the critical 
and constructive study of those universal conceptions under 
which all concrete real beings and all actual events are known 
by all men ; but always in the good faith that its results are 
entitled to a confidence which is proportioned to the range to 
which such study can be extended, and to the fidelity with 
which the obligations of such study can be discharged. 

To keep epistemological and metaphysical discussions 
wholly apart from each other is indeed a difficult, and per- 
haps it is an impossible achievement. And all students of 
the history of reflective thinking know what dispute has been 
carried on as to the precedence of epistemology or meta- 
physics. Shall one venture to construct an elaborate theory of 
reality before one has thoroughly criticised the human cognitive 
faculty to see whether so great an achievement is possible for 
such faculty ? From the point of view of the Kantian criti- 
cism this order of procedure is illusory and absurd. But to 
insist upon settling questions of a critique of all reason before 
making use of reason to extend to the utmost limit our knowl- 
edge of reality, is, according to Hegel, like refusing to go 
near the water until one has learned to swim. At present 
we do not care which side of these distinguished contestants 
is in the right upon the point of order. As a matter of fact, 
we have discussed the epistemological problems in a previous 
work ; and there we have fought it out with sceptical and 
agnostic objections to the validity and limits of human knowl- 
edge. The conclusions there reached render unassailable, in 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 27 

our judgment, the soundness of thatepistemological assumption 
which is of the very essence of all knowledge, and which is 
indispensable for every attempt at a systematic metaphysics. 
The critical theory of knowledge justifies belief in the power 
of the human mind to know reality, and even to give it a 
measurably consistent, satisfying, and helpful theoretical deter- 
mination. On the other hand, the fundamental assumption, 
as respects its theory of knowledge, made by every attempt 
at a system of metaphysics is the denial of the conclusion of 
agnosticism. The necessary forms of human cognition are not 
impotencies of understanding, but potencies of reason; they are 
not limitations of the sphere of vision, but insights into the 
nature of Reality. 

This right to employ, in courage and in good faith, the 
reflective faculties so as to validate an attempt to grasp to- 
gether and illumine all the concrete real things and actual 
events and relations of human experience in some unifying 
way, is not the special or exclusive possession of any thinker. 
Neither is it limited in its application to systematic meta- 
physics or to " school " philosophy. It is needed to convert 
all science into something better than a logical arrangement 
of mere ideas ; it is, indeed, the assumption which all positive 
science makes when it virtually refuses to regard itself as 
anything less important and aesthetically impressive than a 
system of cognitions and conjectures touching the nature of 
reality. So, then, in assuming the positive standpoint of 
faith in human reason which has been attained by previous 
epistemological discussion, we are only defining the right which 
belongs to metaphysics in general. The right we expect to 
exercise is extended to all others ; for it belongs to all others. 
It is the right to transcend the sceptical method, to leave 
wholly behind the agnostic point of view ; and without further 
reference to sceptical and agnostic objections and inquiries — 
whether legitimate or illegitimate, reasonable or absurd — to 
push reflection as far as possible toward a consistent and 
satisfactory Theory of Reality. 



28 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Little beyond what has already been implied need now be 
said concerning the method of metaphysics. Here as usual, 
while method is of much importance, discussion of method is 
of comparatively small value. Indeed, the method of system- 
atic metaphysics is quite closely defined by the very concep- 
tion of the nature of systematic metaphysics. All cognitive 
experience is of, and about reality. It is real things, actual 
events, and actual relations, of and about which men have 
and affirm knowledge. This is true whether such knowledge 
is ordinary or scientific or philosophical. Inasmuch, then, 
as systematic metaphysics aims at a theory of reality, it must 
ever face this cognitive experience ; and as it faces experience, 
metaphysics reflects upon that which it faces. Nothing can 
easily be more false and misleading as to the proper way of 
arriving at metaphysical truth than to follow literally the 
injunctions of the German writer who declares: "Experience 
must be subordinated to the concept. . . . Experience can give 
us only perspective pictures ; and, therefore, only what belongs 
to the inner world." l But metaphysics follows experience 
with the reflective method, and in the full confidence that ex- 
perience does give us something more than " perspective pict- 
ures," — namely, a trustworthy knowledge of the real world 
both of things and of minds. In the use of its method it 
recognizes, however, the pertinency of Boyle's way of stating 
the case : " When we say experience corrects reason, 't is an 
improper way of speaking ; since 't is reason itself that, upon 
information of experience, corrects the judgment it had made 
before." The recognition and the rationalizing of all our ex- 
perience ivith reality is the method of metaphysical system. 

The relation in which systematic metaphysics places itself 
toward the particular sciences has already been indicated as 
something belonging to its very nature. But the same relation 
also determines the method of metaphysics. It is receptive 
toward all the principles and conceptions of these sciences, so 

1 Teichmuller, Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt, p. 233. 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 29 

far as they deal with the particular kinds of reality. But it is 
critical oi all these principles and conceptions ; for its purpose 
is to determine the limits, the rights, and the connections, of 
each of them in its relation to all. And thus metaphysics 
becomes in its aim and conclusions synthetic and constructive. 
I or it aims to harmonize and interpret the assumptions and 
the conclusions of the particular sciences in the light of the 
highest and most comprehensive reflectx 

Metaphysics then employs the critical and constructive 
method in its study of the universal forms of knowledge — 
the so-called " categories " — in no merely formal way. It is 
not its ultimate purpose simply to catalogue the categories, to 
know what they are. and to attach more precise meanings to 
them when their names are called. Its purpose is rather, by 
accepting them as the universally recognized forms of concrete 
realities, to reflect upon them so as to frame, if possible, a 
consistent and satisfying theory of reality. 

In concluding these introductory remarks it may be said 
that the propriety of any particular attempt at systematic 
metaphysics depends upon a number of particulars. That 
such attempts will be made from time to time is as certain as 
that men will continue to reflect upon the problems offered 
by their own lives and by the environment of the universe in 
which these lives arise and pass away. Some roots in human 
nature which make metaphysics persist in spite of popular 
neglect, and notwithstanding the pride of positive and definite 
scientific knowledge, must certainly be allowed in order to 
account for the recurrence of these attempts. Surely they 
are not undertaken for the material profit which is in them. 
Nor do we believe that the remark of Riehl goes very deep 
into the truth when he ascribes metaphysics to " a natural 
hankering of man after the measureless and the illimitable." 
But whether any particular individual, with any measure of 
propriety or success, shall undertake so thankless a task, it 
depends upon himself to judge in the first instance, and in 



30 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the last upon his contemporaries and his successors. Above 
all he should make up his mind to keep himself free from 
what the Greeks called /cpo/cvXey/uLos (dealing in trifles) and 
from yjrvxpoTT)^ (ambitious conceits). 

The reflections just made may fitly lead to confession, to 
apology, and to appeal for indulgence. The following attempt 
at a sketch of an ontological theory does not pretend to be 
either infallible, or complete, or even conclusive from every 
point of view. It is, of course, nothing more important than 
certain opinions, about a set of very profound and difficult 
problems, expounded in an orderly way by an individual 
thinker. That one's peculiar standpoints and views on 
special problems, and especially one's ethical and religious, 
faiths and tendencies, should have an influence upon one's 
general ontological theory, is probably inevitable. Indeed, 
although metaphysics professedly deals with the universal and 
the unchanging, every particular instance of such dealing is 
the product of the individual and of his age. Hence there is 
peculiar need that every man who, anew and for himself 
primarily, and then for his day and generation, approaches 
these problems, should orientate himself — intelligently and 
self-consciously as it were. How conscientiously any author 
has done this, it is not becoming for him to explain ; how 
successfully, it is not becoming for him to judge. Enough 
that the result be received as the contribution of a single 
mind to the increase of the general stock of reflective 
thinking. 

But, however any thinker may resolve to be independent 
and uninfluenced in his metaphysics by prevalent views, the 
Zeitgeist will doubtless have certain conceptions to empha- 
size and thoughts to express. Even the few teachers for all 
ages are also the children of their own age. And for the 
great multitude of students of metaphysics, what individuals 
think about these universal and eternal problems is (however 
deftly concealed, or expressed in idiosyncrasies of language, 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 31 

or " made over " for the season, like the black silks which our 
grandmothers used to wear) little else than the thought that 
is the current opinion of their age. We say of their age ; 
and this may mean of the particular coterie to which they 
belong, — a selected specialization of the spirit of their time. 

There are two comprehensive conceptions which seem to us 
to be shaping the thought and the conduct of the present age. 
These are, of course, not new, either in their total complexion 
or in any of their most important factors ; otherwise they 
could not be so comprehensive and influential as they are. 
But they are receiving new and enlarged meanings ; they 
are made to serve more extended and illumining uses. These 
are the conception of Evolution, of the principle of becoming, 
and the conception of Self-hood, especially as having its roots 
in, and its reaching out into, social connections. What 
wonder, then, if our theory of reality finds itself compelled to 
regard all the concrete being of things and of minds as a 
process of becoming, somehow related (and we will wait to 
choose our words, whether "creation," "manifestation," 
" revelation," etc.) to the Being of an Absolute Self ? 

And now one can easily anticipate objections which it is of 
little use at present trying to remove. Let it be confessed, at 
once and for all, that our theory of reality is anthropomorphic. 
But so is all science, and so is every form of philosophy. So 
also, of course, is the most ordinary and yet most fundamental 
cognitive experience. Metaphysics, we repeat, is severely 
critical — but not of the faculty, or power, of cognition ; it is 
critical rather of the actual results of cognition. It is indeed 
only of all things and transactions as known to us — finite in- 
tellects, prone to deception, groping in darkness, in restricted 
commerce with things of sense — that metaphysics can claim 
to treat. But the only things that can exist for us are the 
things known by us, and the things somehow implied in them. 
We will lay aside for the time any mixture of half-insane 
scepticism, and take ourselves and our fellow-men with courage 



32 A THEORY OF REALITY 

and with good faith. We will study the universal and eter- 
nal forms of man's knowledge of things as the universal and 
eternal forms of the things known ; and we will see whether 
we cannot in this way get a grasp upon some supreme and 
ultimate truths to be learned about the universal and eternal 
nature of Reality. We will begin and continue our search for 
truth with confidence in theoretical reason ; all the way we 
will not suffer ourselves to become mere critics of the cogni- 
tive faculty. For from the sole standpoint of Kant's Kritik 
der reinen Yernunft no man can so much as invest with any 
satisfactory content the words all men agree in using to 
express the indubitable common experience with the real 
things and the actual events of the world. 

" Man is the measure of all things : " this is a very old 
saying ; science has much impugned it of late ; its falsity or 
truthfulness depends upon how it is understood. But if, 
rightly understood, it is to be called rationalism, then no 
dogmatism can be so little rationalistic and weakly critical as 
to avoid being forced to this conclusion ; if, on the other 
hand, it is to be called dogmatism, then no rationalism or 
criticism can be so little dogmatic as to avoid taking refuge — 
however covertly — in this assumption. The meaning in 
which we accept the ancient dictum has been defined in detail 
as a philosophy of knowledge. The way man does actually 
measure all things and embody his measurements in a system 
of cognitions must now conduct us to a theory of reality. The 
traditional metaphysician — to adopt Hegel's figure of speech 
— paints his entire picture in shades of gray QGrau in 
Graii) ; and this, as he thinks, is because the metaphysician 
has upon his palette only the " abstract essence of the cat- 
egories" (das ganz Abstraete der Begriffe). If this our 
metaphysical picture has in it a bit of vivid coloring here 
and there, it will be because we hold that the categories 
are significant as forms of life in both the subject and 
the object; and that every concrete fragment and separate 



METAPHYSICS: NATURE, METHOD, AND PROPRIETY 33 

event is a factor, and a pulsation, significant of something 
more than a mere reign of law, and more than a logical 
arrangement of ideas and thoughts. For the total interests of 
humanity demand a Theory of Reality which shall be, on the one 
hand, firmly founded in cognitive experience, and on the other 
hand, well adapted to serve all man's practical needs. The 
construction of a tenable and comforting philosophy is a work 
of good-will ; it is a beneficent deed, a gift of blessing to 
humanity. 



CHAPTER II 

PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 

At the veiy threshold of every ontological structure stands 
a distinction which must somehow be recognized, but which, 
by the precise form given to its significance, exercises an 
important influence upon the structure itself. The terms in 
which this distinction has been embodied are somewhat varia- 
ble, while its essential relation to metaphysical system has 
remained the same. In this way several pairs of words have 
arisen and become more or less fixed in the terminology of 
philosophy ; such are the Heraclitic and the Eleatic contrast 
of Becoming and Being, the Platonic contrast of the sensible 
thing with the Idea of which it is the shadow, the Kantian 
thing as an object of knowledge and the " Thing-in-itself," or 
the cognizable concrete realities and the unknown Real. In 
similar manner has Mr. Spencer contrasted his one Unknown 
Force, with its own multifarious " manifestations." From 
Parmenides to Mr. Bradley, though with different shades of 
meaning and with different conclusions drawn from the dis- 
tinction, man's total experience has been customarily divided 
between " Appearance " and " Reality." Noumenal and phe- 
nomenal, actuality and manifestation, die wirkliehe und die 
scheinbare Welt — these and similar expressions involve, in 
differing ways and from different points of view, essentially 
the same thought. 

The philological and historical examination of the concep- 
tions embodied in such terms as those just mentioned is 
interesting, and may be made to throw some light upon the 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 35 

nature of metaphysical problems. A criticism of the various 
shades to the distinction upon which the conceptions are 
based is of more value. But to approach in either of these 
ways the theme suggested by the title of this chapter would 
not greatly further the main purpose of metaphysical discus- 
sion. The end of such discussion is a theory of reality that 
shall harmonize and give significance, so far as human powers 
of reflection can, to all the work-a-day as well as to the 
scientific cognitions of men respecting concrete real things 
and actual events. But in the attempt to do this we are met 
by opinions — as old as philosophy itself — which regard 
this reality, about whose nature we are seeking a theoretical 
construction, apart from, or in sharp contrast with, our wort 
a-day and our scientific experience. It seems, then, as though 
we could not get at " genuine " Reality, in order to examine 
studiously its essence and its import, until we have separated 
it from an admixture of mere appearance, an envelope or 
shroud of the phenomenal. To avoid the distinction appears 
to be equivalent to a dismissal of the entire problem of onto- 
logical speculation, as this problem has been conceived and 
cultivated during all the generations of thinkers in philos- 
ophy. But to admit the distinction in the form customarily 
given to it is likely to end in the virtual confession that this 
problem is not only insoluble, but even profitless and illusory. 

We accept, then, the distinction between Phenomenon and 
Actuality (or whatever other pairs of terms one chooses for 
the expression of a similar result of reflective thinking) as 
essential to be observed for the student of systematic meta- 
physics. But the way in which the distinction is to be made 
and carried out must be critically examined. To determine 
its psychological origin and its ontological import and value is 
an indispensable part of an introduction to our further task. 

The psychological origin of the distinction behueen phenom- 
enon and actuality, or between " the apparent " and " the 
real," is to he found in the process of knowledge itself — as a 



36 A THEORY OF REALITY 

development both in the life of the individual and of the 
race. This distinction is, indeed, the necessary result of all 
growth whatever in reflective thinking, and even of the exercise 
of cognitive faculty. While the primary acts of knowledge 
are forming in the infantile stream of consciousness no such 
distinction is manifest or actually made. Only the knower 
heeds the difference between what is and ivhat merely seems to 
be. For the infant, the actual is only phenomenal and the 
phenomenal is the only actual. We whose very life blood is 
tinged with this distinction, who have so often been deceived 
by ourselves and by others and by things, cannot put our- 
selves in imagination back into that naive and trusting 
infantile consciousness. But all our science of its states 
shows us that it is impulsively active and indiscriminatingly 
receptive. It does what it is psycho- physically moved to 
do ; and it takes what of experience comes to it. It is neither 
sceptical, nor critical, nor agnostic ; and so long as it knows 
neither its Self nor any Thing, it is incapable of making any 
distinction resembling that between appearance and reality. 
With the development of the knowledge of self and the 
knowledge of things, the distinction which philosophy has 
so often misunderstood and abused becomes inevitable and 
actual matter of fact in every human consciousness. This 
distinction is probably first emphasized and worked into ex- 
perience by commerce with external things. For these 
objects are known to all men by various senses, under condi- 
tions that are seldom twice precisely alike, and in an almost 
infinite variety of aspects. But whenever and however 
known, they are likely to be of important practical interest ; 
and they mislead us in a practical way quite too often to per- 
mit us to place an unwavering confidence in our knowledge of 
them — what they are and what they will do. The child who 
expects pleasure from grasping the candle, or from tasting 
the pepper, or from caressing the ill-natured dog, or from 
snatching the older boy's toy, or from stuffing himself with 



PHEXOMEXOX AXD ACTUALITY 37 

sweets, gets his early lessons In the distinction that things 
are not always as they seem. 

This same lesson in making distinctions between appear- 
ances for practical ends, received in essentially the same way 
and entitled to no less and no more of significance, is what 
the particular sciences are learning from day to day. In 
their learning of the lesson, however, the distinction becomes 
something other than that which it is for the child ; it ceases 
to be any longer merely the correction of one judgment 
made upon a basis of one class of sensuous experiences by 
another judgment resting upon another kind of sensuous 
experiences. While it does not wholly lose its more childish, 
and practical significance, it becomes a distinction between 
the obvious and sensible qualities and changes of things, 
considered as effects, and those hidden, inferred powers and 
changes which science investigates as the causes of these 
effects. 

In the one case, the thing or the event cognized in a judg- 
ment made on grounds of observation by one sense may be 
said to be only •• apparent " as contrasted with the same thing 
or event cognized in a judgment made on grounds of another 
sense. In the other case, all judgments made on grounds of 
observation by the senses may be called ; - apparent'" as con- 
trasted with those more general judgments which science 
feels itself competent to pass upon the causes of all sensuous 
judgments. From the one point of view, the stick which 
seems bent in the water is the appearance ; and the stick 
which we plainly see not to be bent when it is taken out of 
the water, is the actual stick. From the other point of view. 
the flash of lightning or the spark which, seems to pass, and 
actually does pass, from A to B is the phenomenon : the 
rapid undulation of the ether, which is now electricity and 
anon is light, is the cause in reality of the phenomenon. 

But. plainly, man's reflective thinking cannot stop at this 
point in its distinction between appearance and reality. It 



38 A THEORY OF REALITY 

cannot continue uncritically to assign the data of sense-per- 
ception to the former and limit the application of the latter 
to the construction of rational hypotheses. To recur to 
the example just mentioned : we must go on to inquire, 
What is the superior actuality of this hypothetical entity 
called ether, and of the theoretical movements which are 
assumed to take place in it, but of which no direct witness by 
the objective senses of touch or of sight can be obtained ? 
Why must not ether, and waves in ether be considered as pure 
conceptions, as only our human conjectures about what kind of 
a being, if it existed said behaved in such a way, might well 
enough explain to our intellects the phenomena witnessed by our 
senses ? Let us, then, return to solid ground of standing ; and 
is not such ground found only in the phenomena themselves, 
the facts of actual sense-experience ? The things I perceive 
are the realities ; the conceptual explanations given of them 
by the man of science are only appearances — made credible 
for the time being by the conjectural activities of some human 
intellect. The actual facts remain, for all time and all per- 
sons, essentially the same ; but who knows what new kind of 
an entity, with novel but equally conjectural modes of behavior, 
may some day be substituted for this nineteenth-century demi- 
god — the so-called " ether " ? 

In relief from such see-sawing between the actuality of each 
phenomenon, which is debased by calling it mere appearance, 
and the conceptually correct seeming of that which gets its only 
valid claim to reality by usurping the title from the phenome- 
non, the reflective thinking of man may be driven in either of 
two directions. One of these is the path of complete scep- 
ticism leading to agnosticism. But our critical theory of 
knowledge has already excluded us from this path ; and to 
pursue it anew would bring us to no tenable theory of reality. 
The other path seems to conduct the metaphysician where 
phenomena and their conceptual explanations must both alike 
be considered as mere appearances. To this condition of un- 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 39 

trustworthy seeming all known things and all their scientific 
explanations are then reduced. But over against them — 
grand, impressive, yet inscrutable and of little practical signi- 
ficance — stands the Unknown Real, the unchanging One that 
is the foil of the ceaseless process of Becoming. Reality itself 
now appears Qsic) in the garb of an abstraction, — an empty 
apple of Sodom which is offered to man to appease his cease- 
less hunger for an object of knowledge that is freed from the 
limitations of the phenomenal. 

It is of little use to seek further light on the distinction be- 
tween "appearance" and "reality," as applied to external 
objects, until we have also considered how a similar distinction 
arises in the sphere of self-consciousness. In this sphere, too, the 
growth of knowledge forces all men to distinguish between the 
phenomenal and the real ; but the distinction is not precisely 
the same, nor is it made on the same grounds, as when applied 
to things. Touching the actuality of every phenomenon when 
the reference implied in the question is to some conscious state 
of its own, the mind is never in any doubt. From the point of 
view held by this reference, phenomenon means nothing less 
than a self-cognized fact, which " appears " at all only on the 
condition that it is an actual event in the real life of the being 
whose states are all similarly cognized facts. About this 
form of a distinction also, to be sure, the infant does not con- 
cern itself. For it there is no possible question as to what 
merely seems to be, and what actually is its own. As yet no 
cognitions of Self or of Things have taken place. But let the 
development of self-consciousness, and the consequent growth 
of self-knowledge, be supposed ; and even then the self-con- 
scious states cannot be divided into two classes, into appear- 
ances and realities, as the distinction indicated by these words 
applies to things. 

The conclusion just reached needs further attention . I may 
doubt whether that particular tree which I seem to see over 
yonder has any actual (or so-called " trans-subjective ") 



40 A THEORY OF REALITY 

existence ; whether what it is — color, extension, shape, loca- 
tion in space, etc. — be not merely as my object, an appearance 
to me of that which is not itself real. The tree may certainly 
be considered as an illusion, an hallucination, a phantom of 
my brain, a figment of my imagination ; or it may for the 
moment be regarded as a phenomenal real, the object con- 
structed by the constitutive activity of my intellect, function- 
ing after the forms of the twelve categories. But the moment 
I take the point of view of self-consciousness toward this 
object of mine all such distinction between " it " as phenome- 
non and the same " it " as reality becomes impossible. Seem- 
ing to see a tree and really seeing a tree are, from the point 
of view of self -consciousness, alike actual and alike phenome- 
nal. For the distinction between an actual tree and a merely 
apparent tree is one which carries us beyond the point of 
view assumed by the observer who stands in the stream of 
his own consciousness. My object tree can be spoken of as 
" mere " phenomenon only in this sense ; it can be regarded 
as so completely dependent for its existence and its continu- 
ance upon me as a knower as to have no existence in the form 
of an object for any other self, and no influence or place in the 
world of external things. But as my object, it is no more 
phenomenal and no less real than are all things known to me. 
Every object and every state is as really my object and as 
much an actual event in my stream of consciousness as is any 
other. 

The distinction as to kind of state arises indeed, in self-con- 
sciousness. But this, too, is a different distinction from that 
between the phenomenal and the actual as applied to things. 
I may mistake my hallucination for my perception, my imag- 
ination for my memory, my involuntary impulse for my deed of 
free will. I may be deceived as to the character of my motives, 
as to the grounds for my conclusions, as to the sanity of my 
hopes and aspirations. But all these actual events in my con- 
sciousness, when regarded in respect of their claims to existence 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 41 

as expressive of the reality of the being which I am,, 
stand on the same level of fact. They may all be regarded 
as purely mental phenomena ; but they are all also parts of 
the reality I call my Self ; because they are all actual events, 
referable alike to the one subject of them all. In man's 
experience with things, what is actual to one sense is mere 
appearance to another sense, or to the same sense under other 
conditions ; what is real to all the senses is properly spoken of 
as mere appearance from the point of view of the explanatory 
intellect ; and even the categories themselves — those very 
forms of the objectivization of sensuous impressions without 
which no knowledge of concrete realities can take place — may 
be treated as belonging to the world of appearances only. So 
Kant treated them. But the moment we enter the world 
of self-contemplation the import of any such distinction is 
changed. We reaffirm that all mental phenomena, as such, 
are equally actual psychical events ; and that they all equally 
belong to that reality I call my Self. 

But further reflection soon reveals an important application 
of the distinction between the phenomenal and the actual 
which undoubtedly maintains itself in the sphere of self-con- 
sciousness also. Indeed it is, in some sort only on the basis 
of this distinction that self-knowledge develops. My con- 
scious states — so far at least as they fall under the Blick- 
jpunkt of self-consciousness — are phenomena to me. Every 
act of self-consciousness means this : namely, that so qualified, 
as it were, do I actually seem to myself to be. Sometimes it 
is as having a pain, and sometimes as having a pleasure ; 
sometimes as beholding an image of the past, and sometimes as 
taking an outlook toward the future ; sometimes as forming a 
plan touching my daily business, and sometimes as framing 
a thought about some invisible and spiritual entity. Each 
particular state passes quickly away and is succeeded by 
another. And so I speak of them all as a life that is in a 
constant flux, a succession of psychoses, a flowing stream of 



42 A THEORY OF REALITY 

conscious states. Many of them I have forgotten; and of 
those I remember, which were once so vivid and absorbing 
of interest, how many are now like the pale, trooping shadows 
of a more than half forgotten dream ! Surely my very being 
is all, when taken together, and it is in each and every one of 
its portions, a series of appearances not worthy the name of a 
being truly real. 

And yet my very ability to regard each and all of these 
psychoses as phenomenal is dependent upon my consciousness 
of something within the same sphere which must be thrown 
into a marked contrast with the fleeting states. This some- 
thing is I, — my Self, as the saying goes, — the one subject 
of all the states. These self-conscious states are both real 
as events, and are appearances as well, only because their 
very nature consists in their being, so to speak, brought 
under the eye of the Self, and appearing to it as its own states. 
Their existence lasts only so long as their appearance lasts ; 
when they cease to be in evidence before the subject of them 
all, they cease really to be. In other words, the reality which 
the conscious states have is not different from their actual 
appearance as events in the stream of consciousness. But even 
the lowest form of a genuine self-consciousness implies some- 
thing more, and more permanent, which is characteristic of 
every one of these self-conscious states. This something more 
is the being which is the subject of the states. What further 
this something is, and in what sense its existence is real, per- 
manent, and universal, as belonging to all the phenomena, it 
requires a scientific study of self-knowledge to say. It is 
enough for our present purpose to call this something the 
Ego, the Self, or the common subject of the conscious states. 

This, then, is the distinction between phenomenon and act- 
uality which is embodied and emphasized in every act of 
self-consciousness. It is the distinction between the conscious 
process or state, which exists only as it appears to the Self 
or subject, and that same Self regarded as the subject of 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 43 

all the conscious processes or states. They are, relative to 
it, appearances or phenomena ; but It is the one permanently 
existing and real subject of all the phenomena. My con- 
scious activities or states are mine ; they are actual events 
appearing in that " stream of consciousness " I call my life ; 
but I am the real being whose activities or states they are ; 
and to whom — speaking in a permissible and pregnant figure 
of speech — they all appear. And to no other being do they 
appear ; to all other selves, if my conscious states are 
made known at all, it is through certain physical signs which 
appear to these other selves as phenomena of external things. 

A study of the psychological origin of this group of philo- 
sophical conceptions reveals, then, this important truth : In 
the sphere of self-consciousness the distinction between reality 
and appearance is valid only as a distinction between the Self 
and its conscious states. 

Further exposition of the psychological origin of this dis- 
tinction between the phenomenal and the actual, both as 
respects things and as respects the self, does not concern us 
now. How it comes about that the total content of every 
portion of the stream of consciousness which gets conscious 
recognition divides itself into state or process and subject of 
state or process, is a problem in introspective and speculative 
psychology. What that can be justified by an appeal to experi- 
ence is meant by speaking of the self as a real and permanent 
being, which stands in such relation to its own individual ex- 
periences as forbids its being identified with any one of these 
experiences, and as requires that it should be regarded as in 
some sort the possessor of them all, — this belongs to the 
metaphysics of mind to discuss. What has already been 
shown is sufficient for our present purpose. The conclusion 
may be summed up as follows : In its application to things the 
distinction between the phenomenal and the real is fleeting, 
evanescent, elusive ; but in its application to the self the 
meaning and limits of the distinction are perfectly clear. 



44 A THEORY OF REALITY 

The conclusion which has just been reached from the point 
of view of psychological analysis is amply enforced by a 
survey of the history of philosophy. In the metaphysics of 
nature, and as to the valid conclusions of reflective thinking 
about the essential being of things, the line of cleavage be- 
tween the phenomenal and the real has been variously drawn 
by different philosophers. With some, as with Parmenides 
of old, the world of sensuous changes is throughout mere 
seeming; the unchanging One is the alone real. With others, 
as with Heraclitus of old, the changes themselves, the sen- 
suously known processes of Becoming, are the only actual ; 
the conceptually fixed and unchanging has no real existence ; 
it is the mere construct of the human mind. For one school 
of thinkers, only the object of reason, the Idea, is entitled to 
be called actuality ; for another, only the objects of sense. 
All students of the great master of criticism know how pre- 
eminently unsatisfying is the answer which Kant gives to 
any attempt consistently to fix the meaning of this distinction, 
so fundamental to his entire system of thinking. In the 
Transcendental ^Esthetics the real is admitted into our sen- 
suous experience as the unknown cause of our having sensa- 
tions at all ; in the Transcendental Logic all the most assured 
and scientific knowledge of real things is reduced to the 
object-making activity of our understanding and so to the 
phenomenally real ; in the Transcendental Dialectic the highest 
ideas of reason are convicted of being nothing but a Logik des 
Schema. In many places in the Kantian writings, the very 
thought of trans-subjective existence seems to be accused of in- 
herent falsity ; Ding-an-Sieh is a purely negative and limit- 
ing conception, like the side of the pond against which the 
blind fish strikes. And yet everywhere, in all three Critiques,, 
the author introduces glimpses of a Reality that is underneath 
and behind all concrete and phenomenal realities. We may 
not know what this Ding-an-Sich is ; but Kant himself is 
sure — at least in a practical and sesthetical way — and he is 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 45 

interested in revealing it to the man of faith. And finally 
we are plainly told that we cannot be rational unless we 
supply an " intelligible substrate " for nature, both external 
and internal. 1 

It is this inability to avoid the conviction that nature as 
man knows it, is the manifestation of a transcendental reality, 
coupled with the inability to define the latter or to fix clear 
limits to the distinction involved in this way of looking at 
nature, which offers one of its most interesting problems to 
every metaphysical system. It is the same inability which 
constitutes the pathos of the figurative and poetical ways of 
applying to the external world the very conceptions of phe- 
nomenon and actuality. But it is the conviction that this 
world of appearances is, in this regard, of our own kindred, 
which gives to such expressions the charm and the sublimity 
they certainly possess. " Perhaps nothing more sublime was 
ever said," remarks in a foot-note the author of the Critique 
of Judgment, " and no sublimer thought ever expressed than 
the famous inscription on the temple of Isis (Mother Nature) : 
6 I am all that is, and that was, and that shall be, and no 
mortal hath lifted my veil.' " And the same note tells us 
how a Professor of Natural Philosophy at Gb'ttingen (Segner, 
1704-1777) " availed himself of this idea in a suggestive 
vignette " in order to inspire his pupils with a " holy awe." 
Who does not recognize, with aesthetical emotion, the truth- 
fulness of Goethe's series of exclamations with their following 
inquiry ? — 

" How all one whole harmonious weaves, 
Each in the other works and lives ! 

Majestic show ! but ah ! a show alone ! 

Nature ! where find I thee, immense, unknown? " 

For the solution of this problem offered by the distinction 
between phenomenon and actuality, in a preliminary way and 

1 Consider the course of the argument in solution of the " antinomy of 
Taste," " Kritik d. Urtheilskraft," I., ii., §§ 57 ff. 



46 A THEORY OF REALITY 

so far as the distinction offers an obstacle to all attempts at 
a positive and yet speculative treatment of the whole field of 
external reality, two critical considerations are sufficient. 
These concern the nature and the validity of this distinction 
when it is regarded from the metaphysician's point of view. 
This point of view is certainly an advance upon that from which 
we have already surveyed the psychological genesis and appli- 
cation, both to Things and to Self, of the same distinction. 
This advanced point of view must, however, remain faithful to 
the facts brought before it by psychological analysis. Onto- 
logical doctrine, so far as it is dependent in any way upon this 
distinction, requires some work of reflective thinking which 
goes beyond psychology ; but it cannot contradict or neglect 
the data of psychology. On the contrary, it must build upon 
these facts as its own secure foundation. 1 

As to the nature of the distinction between phenomenon and 
actuality, so far as this distinction affects the problems and 
the method of metaphysical system, the following critical con- 
sideration is chiefly important. The two terms of the distinc- 
tion are always correlative, mutually related, reciprocally 
dependent for their significance and for their application to 
every class of cognitions. A phenomenon that is not of and 
to some real being is inconceivable. A reality that is not 
phenomenon to itself, or to some other being, is unthinkable. 
Both " the apparent " and " the real " represent merely negative 
conceptions, so long as we try to state them in terms which 
do not involve each the other ; as positive conceptions, filled 
in with a wealth of meaning derived from actual concrete ex- 
periences, they necessarily implicate each other. Meaning 

1 It seems strange, indeed, to the thoughtful student of history that, while the 
distinction of " Appearance " and " Reality " is so old and so universal, the grounds, 
nature, and validity of the distinction itself have received little attention. Sys- 
tems of philosophy have heen built up in the effort to justify it ; or they have 
divided on fundamental doctrines according to that single conception of this couple 
upon which the emphasis was laid. The distinction has given the title to meta- 
physical treatises, both ancient and modern. It has itself received comparatively 
little critical treatment. 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 47 

can be given to neither of these conceptions, without involv- 
ing the meaning which one finds one's self forced to give to 
the other of the two. 

It follows, then, that the phenomenal and the actual, or 
the world of appearance and the world of reality, cannot 
be distinguished as though they were mutually exclusive 
spheres. "We have already seen that the phenomena of the 
entire mental life, regarded from the psychologist's point of 
view, are all alike actual events in the one stream of con- 
sciousness, — all referable, as processes or states, to the one 
real subject of them all. I am not to be set over against my 
own conscious processes, as they appear to me, and thus made 
more truly real by being separated from them. And strictly 
speaking, the same statement is true of all objective and phys- 
ical phenomena as related to that world of reality which is 
recognized as " not-ourselves." Apparent things and real 
things do not belong to two mutually exclusive kinds, or 
spheres, of being. In the realm of so-called Nature, too, 
the appearances are not something that can be drawn off and 
wholly separated from the reality; and that which is real 
cannot be construed as an unknown Ding-an-sich that never 
to any one, nor in any manner, makes itself apparent. Or, 
to follow up the figurative and poetic way of expressing the 
truth, let us say : When men bow their heads at the temple of 
Isis and hear their u Mother Nature " declare, " I am all 
that is, and that was, and that shall be," so far as they 
know anything u that is, or was, or shall be," so far has Nature 
herself, with her own hand, already lifted her veil. 

This general truth may be enforced and made clearer by 
recurring for a moment to the epistemological point of view. 
The distinction between the phenomenal and the actual is, of 
course, a distinction which emerges in the development of 
knowledge. It is a distinction which applies only to objects 
of knowledge, — whether to the self or to things that really 
are not-the-self. But let it be considered from the knower's 



48 A THEORY OF REALITY 

point of view, and what is the meaning of the distinction 
clearly found to be ? Phenomenon and appearance, 
and all similar terms, mean that every object of knowledge 
may, nay must, be considered as somebody's object known. 
" Phenomenon " is any particular object of knowledge, re- 
garded as " showing " itself in the stream of consciousness to 
the being, the total manifestation of whose own existence is 
this stream. " Appearance " is any particular object which 
" presents " itself to the Self, before whom all objects pre- 
sent themselves for cognition, for recognition, and for reflec- 
tive treatment by the higher forms of thought. Without the 
assumed presence of this real being, this conscious self, 
neither showing nor appearing can be conceived of as taking 
place. Nor can it properly be said that such an exposition of 
"the significance of knowledge is merely figurative ; and that to 
be satisfied with it is to allow one's self to be deluded by 
attractive figures of speech. The rather are we dealing here 
with that actual and indubitable experience which itself re- 
quires and admits of no figurative explanation or elucidation ; 
on the contrary, it is this experience itself which is the 
source and the type of all similar figures of speech. Phenom- 
enon and reality are words which refer to this experience. 
Every manner of shining and of seeming takes itself back, for 
all the meaning which it can claim for human thought, to 
the same fundamental facts of cognition. Phenomenon and 
reality are words totally without significance, unless they are 
understood as descriptive of the terms on which all human 
knowledge takes place. Nothing is known, or can be con- 
ceived of as becoming known* except as it appears in con- 
sciousness to some real knower. Or, — to change somewhat 
the customary meaning of the word, — There is no phenom- 
enon which is not made to be " phenomenon " by relation to 
the cognitive processes of a " noumenaV Self. Every phenom- 
enon is to some mind ; every appearance is unto some real, 
cognitive being. 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 49 

From the more metaphysical point of view (although this 
also is an assumption without which knowledge itself is 
impossible) we are equally compelled to say that every 
appearance is of some real being — Self or Thing. Other- 
wise our very words are devoid of meaning when considered 
from this point of view. For every particular phenomenon 
some kind of correlated activity, which may be spoken about 
as the manifestation of some particular agent or active being, 
must be assumed. And just as no appearance terminates in 
mid-air, or in a void, so no appearance arises from mid-air or 
from a void. Phenomena do not issue from the womb of 
non-reality. Every shining is of some sun, as surely as it is 
into some eye ; if the total experience is the perception of 
light. In other words, manifestations are of realities, to 
cognizing selves. 

Neither can the significance of that experience of mankind 
in which originates the distinction of appearance and reality 
be diminished by reminding ourselves that both physical and 
psychical phenomena belong to the consciousness of the 
lower animals. Nor do we succeed better when we consider 
ourselves and one another as " but a moving-row of shadow- 
shapes." The admission of a merely animal conscious- 
ness, or of a human consciousness that is merely sensuous 
and dream-like, does not make the distinction itself, when- 
ever it emerges in consciousness, any less important. This 
is, however, not the question now under discussion. For our 
present inquiry does not concern the genesis of the distinc- 
tion at any precise point of time, or in any grade of men- 
tal development. Our present inquiry concerns the nature 
and validity of the contrast involved in the distinction, partic- 
ularly as applied to external things. Our present contention 
in answer to the inquiry is this : the distinction between the 
phenomenal and the actual is without meaning unless both 
terms of the distinction be considered as involved in every 
cognitive experience. Every such experience is a manifes- 

4 



50 A THEORY OF REALITY 

tation of reality to a reality. The reality to which the 
manifestation is made is always, necessarily, the knower, 
the cognizing self. And such manifestation the knower 
always receives — these are the very terms on which knowl- 
edge is possible — as coming to him from some reality. 

This trans-subjective reference of all knowledge, this impli- 
cate of actual being which is an inseparable moment of the 
cognitive state, we have elsewhere discussed, in a critical 
manner and at great length. The truth is referred to in this 
connection in order to emphasize the correlate truth : 
Appearance and Reality are never, even in thought, so to 
be separated or contrasted as that each does not involve the 
other. No appearance arises in human cognitive conscious- 
ness without reality implicate ; no reality is cognized other- 
wise than in terms of its appearance. For actuality does 
not withdraw when the phenomenon occurs ; nor can the 
phenomenon occur otherwise than as the announcer of the 
presence of reality. And to throw the two into such a con- 
trast as renders their spheres mutually exclusive is not only 
to render them both unmeaning ; it is also to misinterpret 
the most fundamental data of human cognitive experience. 

An analysis of any individual thing known, whether in 
terms of the plain man's consciousness or of the more 
elaborate cognitions of science, enforces the conclusion so 
important for systematic metaphysics : phenomenon and ac- 
tuality must be regarded as inseparable correlates rather than 
as mutually exclusive spheres. It is a trite saying and one 
about which psychology and metaphysics have wrangled 
much : " Things " are always known as real beings that 
possess qualities and achieve results. To constitute a 
" Thing " the phenomena must be supplied with a " that- 
which " — a kind of point of issue and of termination for 
those events which are considered as answering our ques- 
tioning after "what," and "why," and "what-for." Every 
one knows what it is to be deceived and led into error in his 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 51 

search for an answer to this questioning. Every one can be 
made to stare at finding his cherished " core of reality " 
vanishing into nothingness, if he responds to the invitation 
to strip " the Thing " of all those qualifications which give 
to him its " what," and its " why," and its " what-for." But 
every one, no matter how often thus deceived and astonished, 
continues virtually to make, and to enforce upon himself, 
this same distinction as belonging of necessity to the real 
existence of every object. If we may be pardoned so un- 
couth yet convenient a word, the " Thing-hood " of everything 
involves, in a kind of necessary unity, both phenomena and 
actuality. This " Thing-hood " is the almost infinitely com- 
plex appearance of some real being. It can never be either 
mere appearance or pure unmanifested reality. 

None of the wonderful discoveries of modern science, with 
its improved instrumentation which reveals to sense the ex- 
ceedingly small and the very remote, and which makes 
apparent to imagination hitherto undreamed-of relations 
and activities that lie beyond the reach of sense, alter this 
truth in any respect. These new forms of appearance are of 
the same actuality. The answers to the inquiry, What is 
the nature of this actuality ? are indeed made indefinitely 
more numerous by these improved methods of observation. 
Each modern science has its rapidly extending list of answers 
to the demand for qualifications that will actually apply to 
every meanest thing. And the wonder of it all is that we 
never find ourselves able to explicate the whole of the qual- 
ities of any form of real being. We are constantly discov- 
ering that each thing is really some " what " more than we 
had hitherto known it to be. The answers to the inquiry, 
Why does this particular thing behave thus and so ? by no 
means keep pace with the discoveries that define its circle 
of qualities in answer to the question, What ? Yet modern 
science is constantly making its answers to the search after 
explanatory causes more numerous and more precise. Nor 



52 A THEORY OF REALITY 

is it wholly barren of fruit that satisfies the appetite to know 
the teleology of particular things ; although science does not 
consider its duty to lie chiefly in the effort to answer the 
question, What for ? 

In all the growth of modern science, however, reflective 
thinking as to the hidden qualities and hitherto unnoticed 
causes of external things is based upon observation. This is 
of the very essence of science. But observation necessarily 
keeps the phenomena as experienced, and the actuality as sci- 
entifically defined, in constant living intercourse. Every cor- 
rection of an error or of a partial statement is a fresh appeal 
to the indissoluble character of this connection. For science 
such correction never means the more extended separation of 
the apparent and the real ; nor does it mean the confession 
that what is now known to have been only apparent was not 
also an appearance of the real. Science that is true to its 
name and to its duty can never commit the almost stupid 
blunder of a metaphysics which thinks to get at reality by 
some tour deforce of " pure" thinking separated from a basis 
of actual commerce with observed facts. And observed facts 
are, of course, phenomena. 

To expound further the distinction between phenomenon 
and actuality as applied to things, and to show the signifi- 
cance and value of the distinction in the current conceptions 
of particular beings, their qualities, their processes of becoming 
and change, their relations, etc., is an important part of the 
body of any theory of reality. What is meant that is impor- 
tant for the shaping of a metaphysical system by such distinc- 
tions as that between " apparent motion " and " real motion," 
"apparent change" and "real change," etc., can be consid- 
ered in its proper place. But no attempt at metaphysical 
system can be conducted properly without abandoning from 
the beginning the unmeaning and even absurd contrast of 
appearance and reality, as though they were mutually ex- 
clusive, or contradictory, conceptions. The introduction of 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 53 

this contrast necessarily results in a perpetual vacillation 
between two mutually exclusive and contradictory metaphysi- 
cal positions. By emphasizing the phenomenal, it leads to 
the conclusion that all actual human knowledge is illusory, 
hopelessly confined to the realm of mere appearances. Such 
a doctrine of Maya recommends suicide for the metaphysician, 
as a coup de grace inflicted at the very beginning of what 
might, if he would only stay his hand, turn out a really bril- 
liant career. But compelled to emphasize in turn the actual, 
this doctrine finds satisfaction in positing the conception of a 
mere Being, a Unity undefined and unknowable, a Ding-an- 
Sich, hopelessly remote from all concrete and verifiable 
experiences. And thus, indeed, the metaphysician saves his 
own life, — only to find that in the estimate of his fellow-men 
and of himself, when the ethical and religious needs of life 
are pressing, he might quite as well have lost it. 

Inasmuch, then, as metaphysics, like every other methodical 
and well-founded search for the extension of knowledge, 
bases itself on cognitive experience, we accept the distinction 
between phenomenon and actuality. It is a distinction em- 
bodied in the essential nature of every cognition. It is a 
distinction which characterizes the essence of the "Thing- 
hood " of each particular thing. But it is a distinction, or, if 
you please, a contrast, in which the two terms involve each 
other. The true and all-inclusive reality must embrace them 
both. And what is true of each particular object of knowl- 
edge is true also of the world of objects. He who follows one 
set of conclusions so far as to pronounce, with the ancient 
philosophy of the Orient, all things to be illusory, to be Maya 
indeed, must also adopt the statement with which this phi- 
losophy itself supplemented so startling a conclusion. And 
then he shall say with it, as he stands in the presence of every 
particular and concrete real thing : " That, too, art thou." 

The other preliminary conclusion with which we are to 
meet on the threshold the distinction between phenomenon and 



54 A THEORY OF REALITY 

actuality is no less important. It can, however, only receive a 
simple statement at this point in our discussion. Its expan- 
sion, exposition, and defence is a sort of central thesis in the 
entire theory of reality. In a preliminary way the conclusion 
may be stated as follows : The distinction of phenomenon and 
actuality as applied to things in particular, and to the entire 
world of external objects, has its meaning and its validity upon 
the assumption that it is made after the analogy of the same 
distinction as applied to ourselves. Things are real subjects of 
those changing states, which become phenomena to us, in 
somewhat the same way as that in which each Self is known 
to be the subject of its own states. This phrase, " in some- 
what the same way," is designedly made vague ; its further 
definition is an important part of the problems of systematic 
metaphysics. The clear and satisfactory definition of this, 
and every similar phrase, may be quite impossible. The dis- 
cussion of its meaning may often seem to end in the shadows 
of conceptions that are inchoate, or even in a sort of dark 
chaos of stirring emotions. But everywhere we shall find 
ourselves obliged to return upon the position from which the 
critical analysis of the distinction between phenomenon and 
actuality sends us forth. For all things, too, whether as 
experienced in particular or conceived of as together consti- 
tuting a system, Reality is known as a being that is, after the 
analogy of the Self, the subject of changing states. For 
things in particular, and for the Cosmos in the large, pheno- 
menon and actuality are distinguished and contrasted only as 
they are conceived of in terms of the Self and of its various 
"moments" — not divided in thought or in reality; but 
united in each and every reality because both are given in 
that cognitive experience which furnishes the problems of 
metaphysics to thought. 

If we were to undertake at this point a thorough criticism 
of the proposition just made, we should only take time which 
is needed for the same work in other connections. A few 



PHENOMENON AND ACTUALITY 55 

words of general exposition must suffice. TVe have seen that 
the distinction of phenomenon and actuality is itself realized 
in every act of self-knowledge . In every such act I appear to 
myself — the phenomenon of a really existent self to itself. 
In every act of perception by the senses, however, that appears 
to me — to the same self — which is not a phenomenon of me, 
but of some other really existent thing. 

But now suppose that this i: thing-like " appearance is 
detected in actually being not what it seems to be ; and I then 
call it a mere appearance, or — more technically — an illusion 
or an hallucination. It is now a thing which has somehow 
cheated me into recognizing it as the phenomenon of the 
wrong subject. What must I do in order to maintain that 
sanity of intellect which knowledge presupposes ? Nothing 
more than change the point of attachment from which the 
phenomenon proceeds, the being of which my conscious state is 
made a phenomenon. This I may do in either one of several 
ways. I may attribute the phenomenon to another and differ- 
ent kind of subject from that whose appearance to me I 
originally thought it was. It seemed a ghost: but it really is 
the moonlight reflected from the folds of the curtain. It 
seemed an ordinary man, but it really is a materialization of 
a friend's departed spirit. It seemed a solid form, or a ship 
upon the horizon : bat it really is an upright streak of floating 
mist, or a mirage. Or again, I may take the unconsciously 
or the scientifically psycho-physical point of view. Then the 
subject of the phenomenon is my bodily self : and the phenom- 
enon is an appearance to me of some organ or condition of 
this bodily self. It is a defect in my vision, a figment of my 
brain, a disorder of my internal organism. But in this case. 
since the phenomenon is not familiar to me as the phase or 
condition of a thing. I must put in between it and its real 
subject some intermediate link. And this link. too. must be 
a phenomenon which would appear to me, or to some other 
mind, as of the brain, or the liver, or spinal cord, if onlv we 



56 A THEORY OF REALITY 

could get into the proper relations to the actual thing-like 
subject. Or, finally, I may take the wholly subjective point 
of view again ; I may turn, on grounds of practice or of theory, 
to the solipsistic position. And then the phenomenon which 
is an appearance to me is also an appearance of me ; it is 
simply my conscious state, which I have somehow mistaken 
for the state of some being other than myself. 

But to whatever point of attachment in reality the phe- 
nomenon is linked by our perception or by our thought, the 
nature of the distinction implied remains essentially the same. 
The ways of making the distinction change ; the nature of 
the distinction itself is unchanged. From the epistemological 
point of view, phenomenon and actuality mean, when applied 
to things, a distinction between a being that is somehow the 
permanent real subject of its changing states and these chang- 
ing states themselves. The contrast and the unifying which 
are both involved in the distinction belong to the essential 
nature of all cognitive activity. And if knowledge is valid for 
things, and this distinction really applies to things, then the 
words "phenomenon" and "actuality " as applied to the ex- 
ternal world signify the same fundamental truth. The contrast 
and the unifying are both valid in the distinction as applied to 
this external world. This world is known, and is known in a 
trustworthy way, by a projection of the same distinction made 
after the analogy of our cognitive experience with the self. 

How fruitful this thought, with the assumptions it involves, 
"becomes for our understanding of the essential nature of 
things, and indeed for the perfection of any attempt at a 
systematic metaphysics, its future development must be left 
to show. But having passed the threshold we may now bring 
ourselves face to face with that conception in which all the 
problems of metaphysics lie clearly or obscurely involved. 
This conception is one which thoughtful men frame carefully 
and hold before their imagination with open or suppressed 
emotion. It is expressed by the one word reality. 



CHAPTER III 

ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 

What is it that gives to the word " Reality " the feeling-full 
significance with which men so frequently employ it ? That 
this term, and all other terms which convey meanings similar 
to it, have an uncommon power over the mind, he cannot doubt 
who has observed the language and conduct of men. The 
explanation which answers, partially at least, the question just 
raised would have to notice the following three classes of par- 
ticulars. The search after what we feel ourselves entitled to 
call actual, and our debate about the actuality of any partic- 
ular being, event, or relation, is often a matter chiefly of 
scientific and speculative interest. It is a search and a debate 
which are forced upon the mind in all its keen pursuit of knowl- 
edge for its own sake. For the terms employed by the knower 
are meaningless unless they are understood as having an onto- 
logical reference, an implicate of, or a hint toward the trans- 
cendent. The truth is that the mind never affirms knowledge 
— whether the object of the cognitive activity be a fact, a 
relation, a law, or what-not — until it feels that it has some- 
how obtained a grasp upon the transcendent. It is not con- 
ceivable, therefore, that any being which desires knowledge, 
as men are obliged to understand this term, should be other- 
wise than interested, in a somewhat emotional way, in all that 
is conveyed to thought by the word reality. 

In this connection it may be noted that men feel a sort of 
insult offered, and wrong done, to the cognitive faculties when 
they are accused, in particular instances, of inability to lay a 



58 A THEORY OF REALITY 

grasp upon reality. The modern dilettante agnostic, indeed, 
within his scholastic retreat or in the confidences of his club, 
debates with indifference the question whether all human 
knowledge be not illusory. He is perhaps moved to indigna- 
tion by his opponent's claim to know anything about ultimate 
ontological verities — especially of the ethical and religious 
order. His antagonism is perfervid ; but fervent faith or pre- 
tence of knowledge seems despicable to him. Yet when it comes 
to the application of his fundamental principle to any concrete 
instance, the professed agnostic is as eager as another man to 
know what the being "really" is, what the event which " actu- 
ally " took place, or in what terms of a general formula we may 
express " truthfully " the habitual transactions of things. And 
to accuse him of not caring for the truth would be as unjust as 
to bring the same accusation against the most honorable of 
the dogmatists. But truth is a word which has no meaning 
without the implicate of reality. And we need only to con- 
sider the very nature of cognitive judgment in order to see 
that it is always pronounced with that trans-subjective refer- 
ence which is the fundamental tie between the subject's pass- 
ing state and the object's relatively permanent existence. 

The emotional warmth, however, with which men somewhat 
habitually clothe their use of the word reality is not by any 
means a purely scientific affair. Its potency consists even 
more obviously in its relation to our practical and ethical 
interests. We want to know the reality of things because we 
have got to act — to conduct ourselves ill or worthily, safely 
or harmfully — in view of this reality. What that particular 
thing is, what that alleged event actually was, on what habitual 
mode of the behavior of things we may reckon under a certain 
set of circumstances, it concerns us to know in a practical 
way. For we must meet the thing, or use the thing ; we must 
prepare for, or seek to thwart, the expected event. The stream 
of human consciousness does not flow on as though man's 
intellectual constitution, or affective disposition, or conative 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 59 

effort, were its sole determining source. The rather is the 
nature and direction of that stream dependent upon actual 
relations with a system of trans-subjective realities. It is how 
it affects me, — to change my " aesthesis," the pleasure-pain 
series, and the realization of my conscious plans, — that gives 
its significance to the actuality of any particular thing. In a 
poetical way and imaginative mood, I may speak of mind as 
determining my interests and even as making a heaven or a hell 
for me ; but, after all, I am constantly brought back to new 
and more rational estimates of the importance of being in 
certain relations to the environment of actual things. The 
actuality that is in the environment, the reality of what cannot 
be resolved into a mere mood or state of the self, is the 
important practical consideration for the multitude of men. 

Account must also be taken of the meaning of reality, if 
one is to lead the life of a moral and social being. Such a 
life is vaporous unless it be a part of a system of mutually re- 
lated and interdependent realities. We cannot even conceive 
of an ethical being which does not belong to such a system of 
realities. However far solipsism and agnosticism may go in 
satisfying our intellectual demands for an account of the 
genesis and development of other experience, they both utterly 
break down under the weight of ethical demands. In another 
connection 1 we have shown in detail how the categorical im- 
perative of Kant is — in its structure and not to speak of its 
applicability to the actual conditions of humanity — self-con- 
tradictory and absurd, without the admission of a system of 
ontological implicates such as his own critique of cognition 
has distinctly discredited. The Critique of Practical Reason 
transcends or violates every conclusion of the Critique of 
Pure Reason. Solipsism and agnosticism cannot furnish any 
intelligible ground for ethics. Men always understand con- 

1 See Introduction to Philosophy, p. 186 f . ; and Philosophy of Knowledge, 
chap. xi. ("Experience and the Transcendent "), and chap. xii. ("The Impli- 
cates of Knowledge"). 



60 A THEORY OF REALITY 

duct as a transaction between self -existent but related reali- 
ties, mediated by other thing-like realities. Strip off this 
outfit of trans-subjective assumptions, references, and finished 
cognitions, and there is nothing left to answer to the word 
" conduct." Little wonder, then, that men regard the con- 
ceptions embodied in the word Reality as of the highest 
practical and moral import. 

But we must also notice briefly a certain aesthetical potency 
as belonging, by native right, to this same conception. There 
is truth in Mr. Balfour's claim that a part of the equipment 
of a metaphysician is an aesthetical mind. The subjective 
ground upon which this claim rests, or to which it appeals, it 
is the task of a theory of knowledge to investigate. The 
ontological ground for the same claim will become — it is 
reasonable to hope — somewhat clearer as our theory of reality 
is developed. The claim certainly suggests that Reality itself 
has, as a necessary part of its very conception, aesthetical 
" momenta," or factors, or subordinate conceptions. What 
it is in place now to notice, however, is this : an awakening 
of human aesthetical consciousness is a natural response to 
any intelligent conception answering to this word. The mind 
has a kind of respect, a feeling of awe and of mystery, for that 
in every meanest thing which is real, which is not merely its 
own subjective state of the apprehension or the conception of 
the thing. The sources of these emotional stirrings are indeed 
somewhat difficult to explore. But they lie deep, and they 
persist throughout all changes in history. Nature, our 
Mother, stands over against us — in a measure ready to lend 
herself to our wills, but in still larger measure independent 
of our wills ; in a measure, too, capable of being understood 
by, and taken into sympathy with ourselves, but in still larger 
measure baffling our most determined efforts and our pro- 
foundest reflections. If we perish, she persists; and from 
her womb new and strange beings are ceaselessly produced. 
Was it with something of this feeling that the gentle Spinoza 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 61 

is said to have watched, with so great interest, the fierce 
lighting of spiders ? Surely it is this feeling which furnishes, 
in part, the source of wide-spreading nature-worship. And 
how else shall we fully justify the metaphysician's tendency 
in all times to make imposing, by capitals, or italics, or sono- 
rous and often unmeaning phrases, the expression of this 
conception in its most universal form ? Why otherwise 
should men be moved before such mere words as the One 
Being, the all-inclusive Becoming, the Reality, the Idea, the 
Universal Substance ; or even Matter, Force, and the Un- 
knowable ? 

In this strange potency of terms, significant of the trans- 
cendent Reality, to move the ethical and sesthetical feel- 
ings of man do we find the partial justification of Goethe's 
declaration : — 

"Wer Gott nichtfullt in alien Lebenskreisen, 
Dem werdet ITir Ihn nicht beweisen mit Beweisen." 

For in " all the spheres of life " we come face to face with 
reality ; and as we know it concretely and yet so very partially, 
and mould it practically while being ourselves so completely 
within its grasp, we feel what is a fact of cognition, but also 
what lies beyond the reach of our cognitive powers. And 
synthesizing this, man attains a conception that awakens his 
assthetical nature as well as guides and limits his practical 
life. 

We must be prepared, then, for what any attempt at an 
analysis of the term " reality " makes perfectly obvious. 
And this is, first, a certain surprising wealth of content which 
rightly belongs to the most meagre conception answering to 
this word ; and, second, a certain something over and beyond 
all that can be stated as the result of merely reflective analy- 
sis. That is to say : Every real being is known as real, because 
it is presented in experience under a variety of thought-forms ; 
but there also belongs to the reality of every being given in our 



62 A THEORY OF REALITY 

cognitive experience, somewhat more than is obvious simply to 
all thought-forms. Thus it comes about that every particular 
thing, when it becomes an object of knowledge, seems to say 
to us : " 1 am here ; look and you will know in part what I 
am ; but only in part, for there is that in my being which 
precedes and gives unavoidable conditions to your fleeting and 
fragmentary act of knowledge ; and when this act of knowl- 
edge is exhausted and has passed away, I shall still be 
essentially unchanged." By repeated experiences of this 
same sort the mind of man comes to hold a certain vague 
yet comprehensive conception of reality, in general ; of what 
it means to be real, and of what is the totality of real beings 
as known to man. And this we perhaps try to gather to- 
gether into some single pulse of thought, and to express in 
few words to ourselves or to others. At this point the snare 
of both the popular and the scientific and systematic meta- 
physics is the attempt at an impossible simplicity. For 
neither in the uncritical assumption that actuality is exhausted 
by the " crude lumpishness " of things, nor in the most elab- 
orate but merely logical arrangement of philosophical abstrac- 
tions, can the mind describe all that its experience with every 
particular reality implies. And when we try to gather into 
one sentence all our experience with all realities we can — 
speaking reverently — scarcely be more definite, and at the 
same time comprehensive, than to say that they bring to us 
the message of the Infinite and the Eternal : " I am that I 
am." 

This somewhat too mystical way of expressing a funda- 
mental truth of metaphysics is certainly in need of further 
reflection and of restatement. We must, then, drop the more 
vague general word, " Reality," and inquire : What do men 
mean by calling any thing, event, or relation real f On this 
point the sentence with which Lotze opens his system of meta- 
physics is not at all illumining : " Real (wirhlicK) ," says he, " is 
a term we apply to things that exist in contrast with those 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION" OF REALITY 63. 

that do not exist ; to events that happen, in distinction from 
those that do not happen ; and also to relations which obtain, 
in comparison with those that do not obtain." For this 
sentence does not even tell us how we may rightly use our 
words ; much less does it aim to instruct us as to what is the 
conception we should attach to these words. Nor does the 
somewhat celebrated dictum which the same writer afterwards 
proposes and defends — " To be (i. e. really) is to stand re- 
lated " — advance us more than a single step upon our way. 
For if we agree with Lotze that " pure being is an abstraction," 
we must go on to show that " pure " relation is also an abstrac- 
tion. And if we maintain that relation is a category, a form 
of cognition under which all real beings fall, we must give an 
almost untold wealth of meaning to the conception of " stand- 
ing " under this category, in order to make the compound term 
(" standing in relation") express our entire valid experience 
in the cognition of any particular — no matter how insignifi- 
cant — Thing. 

To establish on a firm basis of incontestable experience 
the statement just made, we have only to consider all that is 
involved in our knowledge by the senses of any particular 
thing or particular event. The question which is to be 
answered by bringing it to the test of cognitive experience is 
this : What is it really to be ? But there is no other way even 
to begin the answer to this question than to make a study of 
actually existing things as they are known to men. Neither 
pure mathematics, nor formal logic, nor a metaphysical dialectics 
that is aloof from concrete knowledge, can suggest the answer, 
or even furnish any method of approach, to a problem like 
this. Cognitive experience with concrete things contains at its 
roots, if anywhere it is to be found, the beginnings to a true answer 
of the metaphysical problem. When we examine any such 
experience we find in it, as experience, a living contact with 
reality, which relieves us, if we will only accept and deal 
candidly and yet thoroughly with this proffer of relief, from 



6^ A THEORY OF REALITY 

the results of two equally false assumptions : either that our 
logical formulas can wholly compass reality, or that reality is 
simply the unverifiable construct of our own thoughts. For, 
when looked at from the epistemological point of view, this 
knowledge given to us through our senses, but by no means 
wholly in terms of sensation, implicates a being not-ourselves 
that is limiting and opposing our wills and yet is ever enter- 
ing into actual relations with us in manifold ways. With this 
reality every cognitive experience with the senses puts us into 
actual and vital relations. 

When we turn from asking ourselves, What am /now doing 
and suffering as I know this thing? to asking ourselves, What 
is this thing which, by my doing and suffering, I am coming 
to know ? the answer to the latter question may be almost 
indefinitely prolonged and varied. But each item posited in 
answer to this question is required for its fullest answer ; and 
when all the items have been handed in and estimated as fully 
as possible, the answer is, in every case, by no means com- 
plete. For every single thing, — no matter what, whether 
crystal or flower, stone or star, amceba or human body, — 
really is essentially all that every other thing is, all indeed 
that the known universe of things can claim to be. Its real 
being is no bare simplicity of existence ; its real being has all 
the variety of the universe concentrated in it. Its being is an 
epitome of all things ; and it may be known as such to us. 

Every real Thing is, then, an actualization, in an individual 
way, of all the categories, or necessary and universal forms of 
all existence. It is a concrete and harmonious unifying of 
these categories. 

Now it is not the part of the metaphysician, who is a candid 
and thorough seeker for a valid answer to the question, 
" What is it to be real as this Thing is ? " to play hocus-pocus 
with the testimony of his own experience. It is not his part 
to manufacture contradictions and collisions between his own 
thoughts and then to objectify these unhappy conclusions in the 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY bo 

reality given to his experience. We repeat : The thing holds 
in its being all the categories, in perfect harmony, and in 
living consistency with its own continued existence. Its 
being is the harmonizing and unifying of all those conceptions 
with which the critique of metaphysics has to deal. In the 
actual thing, as I and other men see. handle, and use it. and 
learn about where it comes from and what it will do, attributes 
are not divorced from substance (whatever we may mean by 
this latter word). In the actual thing there is no contra- 
diction set up between unity and variety, between motion and 
rest, between being and becoming. These contrasts and con- 
tradictions arise amongst the crude abstractions of the thinker 
who has somehow gone astray in his thinking : they are not 
actually existent between the parts of the one reality as given 
to the cognitive experience of men ; or between this particular 
reality and other equally real things. Contrasts and con- 
tradictions enough, of a certain sort, there are in that system | ? | 
of realities we call the World. But they are such as can- 
not wholly be harmonized in any one concrete existence. 
"Whereas all the essential factors and forms of loin*;] which 
belong to the conception of a " thing " are harmoniously pres- 
ent, to our cognitive experience^ in every concrete thing. 

Our thought needs illustration from some example. And as 
an example that is fit indeed to illustrate the truth of a whole 
system of metaphysics, anything will do. Let us go into the 
garden and stand before a rose-bush in full bloom. What is 
the answer which this particular thing gives to the ontological 
problem : What is it to be real ? To get any answer at all. 
we must ask this particular thing, definitively and persistently : 
What really art thou ? In the first ,; pulse of attention n with 
which we regard the rose-bush its reality becomes only 
vaguely defined in the consciousness of the observer. It is first 
apprehended as something that is not-ourselves. — there, out 
of us and present before us. but needing further definition as 
to size, shape, significance, and use. of itself as a whole and of 



66 A THEORY OF REALITY 

its various parts. But persistent application of all our cogni- 
tive faculties — and these include all the forms of the living 
existence of the knower — progressively defines what this 
being in particular is. The answer we get as we know more 
about the rose-bush is a succession of cognitive experiences 
in us which is interpreted as a simultaneous possession by the 
thing, of its various qualities. The experiences are a suc- 
cession of states in us ; but the thing possesses all the 
qualities at the same time. We see that it is crimson, that 
it has so many petals, sepals, etc. ; that it answers to our 
memory-picture of such a species with such a name. We 
know it as having these qualities and being of such a name. 
But now we invoke our other senses to make the flower-bush 
tell us what it really is ; and with the result that we are 
affected by its odor, feel its soft, velvety leaves, suffer the 
prick of its thorns, and are resisted in our effort to break 
through its stalks. This, then, is what it actually is to us, as 
answering our metaphysical inquiry through the media of our 
unaided senses. Let this thing thereupon be taken to the 
physicist, the chemist, the botanist, the biologist, the 
historian, or to the painter, the poet, or other student of 
the aesthetical. And they shall all be made to contribute 
volumes in answer to our questionings after information as to 
what really is this so humble and so insignificant a thing. 

When the various answers to the ontological problem from 
the different preliminary points of view — practical, scientific, 
and aesthetical — have been received, let the student of sys- 
tematic metaphysics raise his peculiar form of inquiry. 
What is this particular thing known to be, as possessing 
those characteristics that connect it with the system of 
things ? Its very reality consists in its having all the es- 
sential characteristics common to all things ; and, as well, 
in having them all in some sort of a harmonious and vital 
unity. The rose-bush occupied, and yet could be moved about 
in, space ; it endured, -and yet changed in, time ; it supported 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF EEALITY 67 

and evinced many qualities ; it suffered and did many things 
to us and to other beings, in a great variety of relations ; it 
could be weighed and measured and counted, as a whole or 
in its separable parts ; it had a certain characteristic form 
and fell under certain well-known or conjectural laws. In 
brief but figurative language : It shaved itself possessed of all 
the categories. Quality, Relation, Change, Time, Space and 
Motion, Force and Causation, Quantity and Measure, Unity 
and Xuniber, Form, Law. and Final Purpose — they were all 
present and harmoniously operative in this one single thing. 
It was this unity effected in all the categories which made the 
rose-bush a valid " specimen " of what an actual Thing is. 

Considered as content for conception, every experience of 
cognitive perception gives this same full meaning in answer to 
the inquiry : What is it to be real ? Xo one conception, or class 
of conceptions, to the exclusion of others, is sufficient to furnish 
the satisfactory answer. The rather is every particular thing 
known to be real according to the fulness of the answer with 
which it actually satisfies all these forms of conception. And. 
further, the very nature of thinking is such that, for pur- 
poses of thought, we may indeed render the different parts of' 
our experience abstract; but if we render any part abstract, 
by a separation of it in thought from the others, we fail to 
take into account by our thinking all that our cognitive ex- 
perience actually implies. Our theory of reality will thus 
become too poor to embrace any meanest thing as it is known 
to the weakest of really human intellects. In this respect the 
nature of Reality is at variance with the nature of thought; 
the nature of Reality is rather in accord with the total nature 
of our experience with our self and with things. The bearings 
of this conclusion must now be left for future reconsideration 
and further development. 

Attention has already been called to the experience of man as 
a knower, that every particular being actually answers the 
metaphysical question. What is it to be real ? in a way that 



68 A THEORY OF REALITY 

is not wholly exhausted by even the most complete analysis 
of human thoughts. The evidences for this are found in the 
cognitive experience itself, in all the language which men 
employ to designate the garnered results of this experience, 
and in the outspoken theories or covert admissions of meta- 
physicians of every school. This " something more " is of two 
kinds, which may be regarded from two quite different points 
of view. In the first place, in our most complete knowledge of 
every thing there is involved the consciousness of a present 
limitation of cognition as to what the particular thing is, 
with an added consciousness of the possibility of this thing 
being known to myself or to others in manifold other ways — 
either conceivable or inconceivable by them and by me. I 
can now indeed tell, on a basis of my own experience, only 
a short but true story as to what I know this " thing " to be. 
But the story " as-to-what " the thing really is admits of an 
indefinite expansion. There is always, then, to imagination 
and to thought, the suggestion of a more beyond, as possibly 
belonging to the nature of the thing. This it is, in part, 
which makes fetish worship so spontaneous in the ignorant ; 
and it is this which spurs to ceaseless explorations the scien- 
tific mind. 

There is in every real Thing, moreover, another kind of 
" something more " than that which can be stated in any 
terms of thought. And this is the answer in our experience 
which the object gives to the inquiry whether it is a reality 
at all or not. Now this answer can never be completed by 
a mere multiplication of qualities, activities, and relations, 
that are without any " common point of attachment." This 
answer is only to be completed by the positing, with convic- 
tion, of some common point of attachment for all the par- 
ticular qualities, activities, and relations. We add to our 
knowledge as-to-what any particular thing is, only on the 
basis of a knowledge, somehow already assumed or gained, 
that just this particular thing really is. We qualify only that 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 69 

which is experienced as actual. But the mental affirmation 
of the actuality of any object of our cognitive experience has 
somewhat different roots in this experience from those out of 
which grow the different qualifications of the same object. 
Knowledge of the qualities, changes, and relations of things 
is the result of activities belonging to discriminating con- 
sciousness, in which continual and indefinite growth is pos- 
sible. But the real existence of any thing cannot be made 
clear by a mere description of consciousness " content- wise ; " 
nor can it be represented in terms of mental images merely, 
or in the fuller terms of conception and reasoning. These 
terms all need some " point of attachment," as it were, some 
factor in the cognitive process which shall serve, on account 
of its relative stability, to give to them the unity and solidar- 
ity which belong to man's experience with what he calls real. 
For the Self, such a factor in every act of self-knowledge is 
not difficult to find. It is found in that immediately felt self- 
activity which is the central element in each particular act 
of self-knowledge. I know myself as actually existing, be- 
cause in all knowledge of myself this felt self-activity is 
present as a sort of point of attachment for the particular 
forms of the experience which I know myself to have. Gen- 
eralizing, and expressing the results of reflection in an ab- 
stract way : — I know that I am ; because, as the basis of all 
discriminations as to what I am, and as the core of all such 
self-knowledge, I immediately know myself as will. 

In the growing knowledge of self, the knowledge of things 
is interwoven ; and both in character and in amount, the two 
kinds of knowledge are interdependent. For all my knowl- 
edge is of my Self as a will that is impeded, checked, limited 
by that which I cannot identify with this self. This " some- 
thing-other-than-myself," which is confused and mingled with 
myself in all the earliest stages of mental development and in 
every subsequent pulse of attention that does not secure a 
completed act of clear knowledge, becomes divided up into 



70 A THEORY OF REALITY 

many points of attachment for the various qualifications of 
so-called things. But what meaning shall be given to such 
of these points of attachment as cannot, by the very terms 
of the growth in knowledge, be identified with the active and 
suffering Self? What meaning can be given, other than to 
regard them after the analogy of what is so immediately and 
indubitably recognized in one's own existence ? These are 
the points of attachment for the qualifications which are 
" not-self." They are existences in reality ; but they are ex- 
istences which I have come to know as not-me. They are 
things ; and they could not be conceived of as real unless 
I attributed to them a core of self-activity similar to that which 
I feel in myself and call my will. That things actually are is, 
then, a factor in my knowledge of them which springs from the 
root of an experience with myself as a will, at once active and 
inhibited, as an agent and yet opposed by another. That in 
any thing which is the point of the attachment for all those 
qualities which the growth of knowledge ascribes to this 
particular thing, is identical in its being with what, in our- 
selves, we call " will." 

The further amplification and defence of the conclusion 
just reached belongs to subsequent chapters. It is enough 
at present to note that all cognitive experience with things 
carries in itself the provision for such central points of 
attachment; and that this provision is not made primarily 
by any growth in the clearness and multitude of our 
thoughts ; it is rather given in the fact that all knowing 
involves the immediate experience of Self and of Things, as 
our Will inhibited and limited by other will. The way that 
popular and scientific language recognizes this characteris- 
tic of all human cognitive experience with things is full of 
suggestions for the metaphysician. In spite of objections 
from psychologists and of sarcasms from idealistic metaphysi- 
cians, the popular mind refuses to be satisfied with the doc- 
trine that all of any reality is expressed by summing-up its 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF EEALITY 71 

cualities : nor is this refusal mitigated by the offer of psy- 
chology or of metaphysics to add: -so far as we know" 
things, or considered as things "for us." etc. 

By various figures of speech the popular effort is made to 
express the disbelief that the mind is itself a mere " stream 
of consciousness : " or that the external object which the mind 
knows is a -mere bundle of attributes — a bundle somehow 
got together by circumstances, or come together into a tem- 
poral unity without unifying activity of its own. On the con- 
trary, every Thing or Alind must be regarded as " that which " 
has the qualities: as "that to which" the properties belong. 
The word " qualities " means, in the popular estimate, the vari- 
ous answers which the reality gives to our inquiry as to the 
sort, or lot (quails), among realities, to which this particular 
thing belongs. Properties are the •• very own " of the things : 
but the things are the owners of the properties. In vain does 
the expert make common folk stare with his unanswerable 
inquiry : And what would be left of any thing after all its 
qualities have been removed ? or. What can you make clear 
to thought regarding the being of the thing, that is not stat- 
able in terms of its properties or its relations : There can. 
indeed, be no doubt about the answers to these inquiries: 
Xo reality, but only an abstraction, is left after the qualities 
are thought away : and. of course, properties and relations 
all imply the results of thought upon experience with reali- 
ties. Yet men continue, and will continue, to believe that 
there is somewhat more in every thing than can be defined 
to thought by an enumeration of its properties and rela- 
tions : and this •• somewhat more " is. even if the conceptions 
of men regarding properties and relations be indefinitely 
extended, necessary to the realr/u of the thing. Such a 
necessity is laid in the very foundations of all human 
knowledge. It is the self-felt life of a living Will. 

It will subsequently be shown how inconsistently the physi- 
cal sciences are accnstomed to deal in referring to this 



72 A THEORY OF REALITY 

" something " which is more than a mere enumeration of the 
qualities and relations of things. But these sciences hold to 
their belief in this " something more " as a central article of 
their common creed. They all unite in generalizing upon the 
basis of their experiences with individual things, and thus 
frame an elaborate conception of "matter" in general. 
They feel the necessity for a greater wealth of real exis- 
tence than is covered by even this elaborate conception ; 
and so they have recently posited another kind of being, or 
active agent, to which the name of " ether " is customarily 
given. And the achievements of nineteenth century physics 
are largely summed up in the conception of ether. Now 
that modern physics is provided with two great kinds of 
entities, — matter and ether, — both of which may stand 
as subjects for the manifold new qualities and relations of 
things which it is discovering, this science feels itself much 
better equipped for the handling of phenomena. It may 
complacently go on in its work of defining matter, and de- 
fining ether, by the very proper, specific method of telling 
us what these beings can become and can do. 

But the physical sciences keenly feel and frankly confess 
the limitations of their knowledge as to the nature both of 
matter and of ether. And they are wont to say, when 
pressed, that we do not know, and probably never shall 
know, the " essence " of either. They are ready to turn 
over to metaphysicians further inquiry as to the real beings 
which correspond to these conceptions. Still the physical 
sciences, in telling us what particular things are and can 
do, must always have nouns for their adjectives and their 
verbs. They must also employ substantive terms in the 
statement of their higher and their supreme generalizations. 
This necessity is upon them, even when the modesty of the 
scientific mind induces some such expression as an " un- 
known and unknowable that-which" to substitute for the 
more definite conceptions of matter and of ether. And not 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 73 

infrequently the Samsons among the true Israel of science 
give such a strong agnostic hug to the two pillars (matter 
and ether) upon which the temple above them reposes, as to 
be in danger of bringing it down upon their own heads. But 
if these pillars were pulled down, men could never build 
again the temple of the physical sciences as a system of 
cognitions touching reality, without putting other substantive 
existences, other entities, in their place. Now from the epis- 
temological point of view all this manner of speech is but 
testimony to that root of cognition which lies too deep down 
in experience to be ever exposed merely by reflective think- 
ing. And from the metaphysical point of view, the same 
manner of speaking shows how the reality of any thing in- 
volves that it is, as somewhat too deep in its significance to 
be wholly disclosed by telling ivhat it is — to me and to other 
minds. 

All schools of philosophy, too, virtually recognize that ful- 
ness of meaning to men's cognitive experience with the real- 
ity of things, upon which we are insisting. The philosophical 
uses of words like " substance," " substantiality," etc., have 
perhaps happily gone by. The debate between realism and 
phenomenalism, in any form assumed by either party to the 
long contention, will scarcely again repeat the terminology of 
Locke, or of Berkeley, or of the Woman school as it preceded 
the critical thinking of Kant. Metaphysics to-day has little 
more patience with the assumed Ding-an-sichheit of the great 
critic of cognition himself. But the distinctions out of which 
these terms arose, so far as they lie in that nature which we 
are obliged to give to every object, because the distinctions 
set the very terms on which we know it at all, remain essen- 
tially unchanged. Without assuming some being which is 
the subject of the phenomena, no philosophy can state either 
its problem or its conclusions. With Mr. Spencer the dis- 
tinctions find expression in such terms as the " Unknown 
Force," which is the universal subject, and the varied known 



74 A THEORY OF REALITY 

or as jet unknown forms of its " manifestation." Teich- 
niiiller — to take another example — would handle the prob- 
lem of reality by starting out from the distinction between 
Beziehungs-punkte and Beziehungs-formen. On beginning 
the metaphysician's task one may signalize the same truth 
by positing a perfectly indefinite being of all things, which 
may as well be called an X. The nature of this X is thus 
made the main ontological problem. But the presence, in 
<3very particular thing known to us and in the whole world of 
Reality, as a condition of its being known, of a " somewhat" 
which shall serve as a point of attachment for the qualities 
and relations, must be assumed as an obvious feature of 
cognitive experience. And this truth — as we have said — 
is proved by an analysis of this experience, by the meaning 
of all popular and scientific language about things, and by 
the admissions, if not the avowed doctrines, of every system 
of philosophy. 

It is out of this root of cognitive experience, which is a felt 
activity belonging to the self, but is felt as inhibited and lim- 
ited by that which cannot be identified with the self, that the 
firm and abiding trunk of the tree of Reality has its growth. 
Hence comes — to borrow the language of Riehl ] — " the 
compulsion to apprehend every sense-experience as the sense- 
experience of Something, as the property of some subject 
(X)." Otherwise the mind would never, by any amount of 
development of reasoning faculty, reach beyond an internal 
and subjective logical consistency. Universally valid forms 
of cognition can never alone serve to validate cognition. Ex- 
perience of a will in commerce with other will is necessary 
for this. But every act of cognitive experience, since it is 
something more than pure thinking or mere imagining, fur- 
nishes the " that " of some reality to which our thinking and 
our imagining may attach all that they can discover as to 
" what " belongs to the same reality. And for every system 

1 Der Philosophische Kriticismus, II. i. p. 42. 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 75 

of answers to the question. What is it really to be ? there 
must be found an answer to the doubt whether we are entitled 
to affirm : That something really is. 

It is no wonder, then, that every system of metaphysics may 
also be entitled a Theory of Reality. The expounding of the 
inexhaustible wealth of meaning which men put into that 
word, - reality." can never be all discovered and reduced to 
coin current in the realm of thought, by any amount of 
miner's skill and miner's toil. On the side of conception, 
where the ontological problem can be attacked with the 
detailed analysis of reflective thinking, there is always more 
beyond, which others may discover. All the growth in 
knowledge which the individual can make is his best answer 
to the question : What is Reality ? And the answer is never 
complete for him. But all the growth of knowledge which 
the race of man makes is the answer of the race to the same 
question. And the answer of the race will never be complete. 
There is always more beyond for observation and for thought 
to compass. Yet in every individual Thing also there is an- 
other kind of " surplusage " — so to speak. This is that which 
in ourselves, we experience as the fact of being in existence. 
and which we conceive of as a potency of manifesting itself 
in a varietv of ways. And we never know any external 
thing without projecting into that thing this potency, after 
the analogv of our own selves. It is only on such terms that 
we maintain our commerce, as real minds, with a system of 
really existing things. 

There are many apparent contradictions which must be met 
in the attempt to elaborate the conception of reality in its 
details : and there are certain inherent difficulties which it 
will never be found possible to overcome. But for this very 
reason it is desirable not to multiply difficulties unnecessarily ; 
and to get as many as possible of the more superficial contra- 
dictions out of the way. To this end the following remarks 
will serve in a measure. 



76 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Reality cannot be considered as a mere Process. That 
change in qualities and in relations is not inconsistent with, 
but is rather necessary to the reality of things, we shall see 
subsequently. How the actuality of such change is consistent 
with any kind of permanency, and what kind of permanency 
such actual change makes it necessary to recognize, — these 
are among the special problems of metaphysics. But how- 
ever far the principle of Becoming may be extended, we can 
never identify this principle with the entire conception of 
Reality. To say that nothing but the process is in reality, — 
this is to say that nothing is in reality. This truth is the 
more important to bear in mind when, as at the present time, 
the philosophy of things is so liable to be reduced to a merely 
descriptive history of evolution. This view regards the real 
being of the world as a sort of mere show — a stage- 
performance without an audience. Countless ages ago the 
show was going on ; and this same show has been going on 
ever since. Before mind was, the process in things began, 
and went forward to result in the appearance of human minds. 
But a show that is not a show of some reality, and a show to 
some real and conscious Self, cannot be actual. No view can 
well be more absurd, as an attempt at thinking the reality of 
things in terms of cognition, than this off-hand identification 
of a row of mental images of possible things with the entire 
actuality of things themselves. Nor can we, in the case of 
any individual thing, resolve its whole real being into a mere 
process — mid-air, as it were — with which our series of 
mental images is assumed to be identical. 

Nor can Reality be considered as mere Law. What is meant 
by things obeying laws, and what is the reality that any law 
may have, are problems for metaphysical discussion to settle, 
if it cam But whatever conception be attached to the word 
" law," as ruling over things, or as immanent in things, or as 
nothing but an abstraction of human thought derived from 
the observed modes of the behavior of things, this conception 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 71 

is quite too meagre to give the full meaning of the term 
reality. Moreover, when we come to observe how the par- 
ticular application of the conception to groups and classes of 
real things itself changes with every changing point of view, 
we shall understand better the vanity of trying to exhaust the 
content of reality by stating it in terms of law. The con- 
ception of " Law" in general, even when enforced with a cap- 
ital letter, is one of the most inert and incapable of all 
abstract notions. 

Neither can Reality be identified with the entire Content 
of human consciousness. For on the side of consciousness 
itself, there are many of its products for the real correlates 
of which we cannot possibly vouch ; and not a few which, by 
their very nature as mental constructs, violate all that we 
know about the fixed forms and most permanent laws of 
trans-subjective reality. Nor do we need to go in our scepticism 
upon this point as far as did Kant. The entire doctrine of 
truth and error forbids our identifying the content of human 
consciousness throughout with the real being and actual 
relations and changes of things. It has been supposed — and 
this in the reflections of philosophical circles as well as in the 
puzzles with which the common people have been awed — 
that the impossibility of making any universally tenable dis- 
tinctions between the illusions of dreams and the percep- 
tions of waking life, for example, compels us to some sort of 
identification of the two. That the same activities of mind, 
under the same laws, account for both illusions and percep- 
tions is a psychological truth which we have always been 
ready to insist upon. One may go even further, and affirm 
that no facts of clairvoyance, or of telepathy, or of spiritualistic 
vision, have as yet been shown to afford avenues of commerce 
with reality that are essentially unlike those used in all the 
ordinary work-a-day life. But this does not change essentially 
the deeper-lying truth. It does not appear even to touch that 
truth. The very words " illusion," " hallucination," " error " — 



78 A THEORY OF REALITY 

and the more contemptuous terms which men so freely bestow 
upon what they believe to be mere thinking or mere imagina- 
tion — embody and enforce this truth. Some sure cognition 
of reality it is indeed possible to find in the entire " stream 
of consciousness " we call a mind. For illusions and hallu- 
cinations and insane ravings and cases of double conscious- 
ness, and every shade and kind of queer conceit or subtle 
impulse or bizarre superstition, may afford verifiable knowl- 
edge as to the real being of the human mind. But all this 
compels us the more stoutly, and enables us the more in- 
telligently, to oppose the off-hand identification of the entire 
content of consciousness with the whole realm of reality. 

Neither is Reality to be identified with the inscrutable and 
unknowable Essence of things. The previous view confounds 
reality with the u crude lumpishness " of things as, in the 
form of images, they arise in, and ceaselessly flow away from, 
the " specious present " of consciousness ; but this view con- 
founds reality with the most rarefied and even negative ab- 
stractions of reflective thought. The former, on account of 
its apparent clearness and the ease with which it offers itself 
to the man of what Hegel called " figurate conception," has a 
charm for shallow minds. The latter is the snare of those 
who desire to be profound in their reflections. The one 
eventuates in positivism ; the other tends to metaphysical 
mysticism. 

Three principal forms have been taken by the conclusions 
which those reflective thinkers have reached who make the 
mistake of identifying Reality with the highest and barest 
abstractions. The first of these regards the real being of 
every particular mind or thing as consisting in some " hid- 
den core " of existence. This view results from so expanding 
the necessity of positing what we have called " a point of 
attachment" for all qualities and relations as to make that 
which is thus posited commensurate with the entire extent of 
reality. Thus the qualities and relations themselves cease to 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 79 

be essential " momenta " in the real being of things or minds. 
It — this " core of being " — would continue to be the essence 
of the particular reality, if there were no actual qualities or 
relations to be taken into the account. Sometimes this hid- 
den, inscrutable being of things and of souls slumbers and 
sleeps ; but it always abides at the centre of the soul or of the 
thing, whatever may become of the superficial manifestations. 
We do not now l object to every such form of substantialism 
simply on the ground that it is unintelligible, but for a rea- 
son yet more serious from the metaphysician's point of view. 
It aims to put a stout heart into the body of reality, but in 
fact it takes all the life out of this body. Whatever else we 
lose from our conception of Reality, we must not part with 
its dynamical elements, with its power to do the work de- 
manded of it by that world of things and of minds which is 
known to science and is the ground of the practical life. This 
ghostly substantialism leaves only the bones of being — nay, 
it leaves but a single bone ; it has neither muscle, nor blood, 
nor brain. The " What" of things belongs as truly to their 
essence as does the " That " of things. The latter never can be 
conceived of alone, and it never really is alone. 

The second form of identifying Reality with some rarefied 
and negative conception runs into mysticism in an opposite 
direction. It identifies Reality with the conception of the 
unknown aspects and relations of things ; or even with that 
which is unlike all known aspects and relations, — the Un- 
knowable in general, as it were. Now inasmuch as knowledge 
is always susceptible of growth, in the individual and in the 
race, the negative conception of what no man knows, has 
known, or will know, may easily seem larger and more awe- 
inspiring than the mental image which tries to represent in a 
single pulse of consciousness all that the race knows, or that 
any member of the race knows. But it is difficult to conceive 

1 For a detailed criticism of its positions as applied to the case of the human 
mind, see the author's " Philosophy of Mind/' 



80 A THEORY OF REALITY 

of a more absurd hypostasis than that which follows from 
identifying this negative conception with the only actual 
Being of things. The first form of an abstract substantialism 
arises, we have seen, from the attempt to make the essence 
of reality consist wholly in the fact of our undefined believing, 
feeling, or positing real things and real minds to be. But 
this second abstraction makes the essence of reality to consist 
in the negative fact that we do not know all of, or all about, 
reality in general. This unknown, or unknowable, is then 
assumed to be the real Ground, or Cause, of all that we do 
know. Surely this is to make Chaos and Night the ancestors 
of Jupiter and Minerva ; and to convert metaphysics into 
mythology. 

But the third form of disregarding the meaning of our 
actual experiences with things identifies Reality throughout 
with " the Idea." Now that no real things exist, or can be 
conceived of as existing, without taking into themselves 
potencies which must be admitted as ideal, we shall subse- 
quently show to be a metaphysical truth of the most funda- 
mental importance. We are even ready to put this truth into 
the following preliminary statement : beings that do not 
actualize ideas are not to be known, or in any way admitted to 
imagination or thought, as real. Or, in other words, there is 
no reality in which there is not, as essential to its being real, 
the presence or immanence of ideas to be recognized. And, 
further, the one Reality, or " Unity of Reality," which philos- 
ophy seeks, must also be the Ground of human ideals as well 
as of all the particular realities that become objects of human 
cognition. But just as we ourselves, even in our small meas- 
sure, are too large to be identified with our own ideas, or 
with the total stream of our ideas, or with any one else's 
ideas about us, so is Reality in the large far more than can 
be identified with any mere idea. 

But to return again to the original and more positive points 
of view: Maris conception of Reality must he derived from his 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 81 

cognitive experience with concrete realities — subjected to reflec- 
tive treatment. This reflective treatment, so often as it seems 
about to end in mere abstractions that arise from the over- 
emphasis of thinking upon some particular aspect of his com- 
plex experience, must be called back to the totality of that 
experience again. This habitual recall will keep metaphysics 
firmly rooted in the knowledge of real beings and of actual 
events and relations, while permitting it to be thoughtful. 

Speculating in this way of keeping close to the facts of 
knowledge, we may make three preliminary observations 
about the valid conception of reality. First: Reality is 
always primarily a fact ; it is, first of all, that which is known 
as being in (both as subject and as object) sense-perception 
and self-consciousness. In every single cognitive experience 
of every human being, reality is there ; and it is present with 
all that power to compel conviction which its mere presence 
brings, and with all that wealth of content with which it offers 
itself to the work of the discriminating and constructive in- 
tellect of man. In discussing the " primary act of knowl- 
edge " from the epistemological point of view, this fundamental 
truth has been repeatedly enforced. We shall return to it 
again. 

Second : Reality is always an actor or agent. Dead and 
do-less things are not. We may, indeed, make a sort of 
abstraction of all particular, conceivable forms of acting and 
doing, and may then try in imagination to convert this bare 
potentiality into a real existence. But this very potentiality 
is itself like a slumbering lion — acting in dream-life, and 
ready, at the first prick of the stimulus, to leap forth in the 
full strength of its awakening. It is the half-consciousness 
of this truth which makes much of the physics of the day so 
obscure and provoking, and yet so tenacious in its conception 
of " potential " energy. And "is not chemistry virtually com- 
pelled — and biology as well — to pack the molecules and 

atoms full of sometimes latent and sometimes active poten- 

6 



82 A THEORY OF REALITY 

cies ? But what are masses, molecules, atoms, in reality, 
when they have wholly ceased to be actors or agents ; when, 
in respect of the entire sum of all their qualities and chang- 
ing relations, they are merely " potential " ? Just nothing 
at all. And no wonder ; for if this true " core " of every 
reality is gone from any particular thing or mind, that so- 
called thing or mind is left quite too poor and helpless even 
to raise its voice in the claim to be " one among many " in 
a world of actual transactions between real existences. 

Third : Reality is always connection according to some 
law. What these very words — " connection according to 
some law " — mean as applied to every real being and to every 
actual transaction, undoubtedly needs to be further explained. 
But our statement serves in a preliminary, though somewhat 
vague way, to mark out the lines for a metaphysical system. 
Substance and attributes, change and order, many and one, 
unity in variety, succession and the permanent, action and 
reaction, etc. — all these correlated ways of considering the 
answer to the question, What is it really to be ? imply the 
same truth. The truth expresses the fact which our analysis 
has already emphasized : Somehow, every being succeeds in 
harmonizing, by its actual existence, all the essential attributes 
and potentialities of all beings, in an ideal way. 

Where, then, shall one so disposed find material upon 
which to bestow the work of metaphysical reflection ? Close 
by at hand, and beginning with anything, no matter how 
seemingly insignificant or mean. For every real thing is an 
example, or specimen, of the all-inclusive Reality. But 
especially by, first of all, arriving at terms of satisfactory 
understanding with one's self. For it is written : " He hath 
put the world in their heart." Does this mean, however, 
that I am myself, in my poor thoughts and conceptions, the 
complete and satisfactory measure of this all-inclusive Re- 
ality ? By no means so ; for you are yourself more than 
your own mere thoughts or conceptions ; and the all-inclusive 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY 83 

Reality embraces you as a real and significant, but partial, 
manifestation of its Self. What shall be done with the con- 
tradictions that seem at once to emerge from the dark back- 
ground of experience, and that threaten to break up the 
harmonious structure of the conception ? Contradictions 
that are merely in our conceptions must be solved by an 
appeal to experience, and by the method of prolonged and 
patient reflection. Apparent contradictions, that are solved 
in actuality, belong to the very essence of the Reality which 
thus in its harmonious working presents man with something 
quite different from a merely logical system of agreeable 
ideas — presents him, that is, with the complicated problem 
of a World that is a Unity, although of no merely logical 
kind. 



CHAPTER IV 

EEALITY AS AN ACTUAL HARMONY OF THE CATEGOEIES 

Having paid tribute at the throne of experience, as ruler 
over the thoughts and lives both of common folk and of the 
devotees of science, we may the more securely consider our 
problem, as it is embodied in more abstract terms. It is 
essential to any valid theory of reality that the metaphysician 
shall accept certain of the necessary forms of cognition in 
the faith that they reveal the actual forms of things. These 
necessary forms of cognition, which an analysis of cognitive 
experience shows to be the accepted forms of things, are the 
so-called " categories." This linguistic usage may be ac- 
cepted, for want of any other single word which seems 
equally convenient and suggestive of the truth. How many 
and precisely what are the categories (in this meaning of the 
word) has been much debated by both logicians and meta- 
physicians. We need not now assume to enumerate or to 
discover them all. It is well known how Kant thought it 
possible to accomplish this preliminary task by making slight 
additions to the Aristotelian catalogue of the necessary kinds 
of judgment. Thus this great critic of knowledge was led to 
the discovery which, almost beyond all others of that really 
penetrating mind, gave satisfaction to his instinct for " ped- 
agogical primness." Four classes ; three in a class ; three 
times four, — i. e., twelve — and no more ; such was the 
demonstrable list of the universal and eternal forms of the 
functioning of all human judgment in objective cognition. 



HARMOXY OF THE CATEGORIES 85 

There were, and there could be, in Kant's thought, no fewer 
and no more than twelve categories. 

Nor is it necessary to notice, even for a brief criticism, 
the attempts of Fichte and of others to reduce the categories 
to a stricter unity ; or the somewhat shifting significance 
which has been given to this and corresponding terms dur- 
ing the last century of philosophical discussion. In this 
discussion the colossal attempt of Hegel to present a com- 
plete theory of reality by treating the necessary forms of 
thinking as a living self-evolution is undoubtedly the most 
significant feature. Our aim is at present much more modest 
than was the aim of these three great thinkers. We wish to 
use the word in the meaning which has already been indicated : 
by categories we understand simply those essential forms of 
knowledge under which men perceive and conceive of all they 
call real. And concerning them we wish to illustrate and 
to enforce the following four truths : First, the categories are 
not separable either in thought or in reality, as are the con- 
crete realities themselves. But, second, no single category 
is recognizable by an analysis of cognitive experience or is 
statable in thought, without involving the recognition and the 
conception of every other. Nevertheless, third, no category 
is completely resolvable into any other. Yet, fourth and 
finally, all the categories form a sort of interior oneness — 
a system which appears as a harmony to thought and is 
experienced as effecting a unity in the world of reality. 

The more complete proof and illustration of these four 
propositions respecting the nature of the reality known to 
man must wait for the detailed discussion of the following 
chapters. The fourth proposition, in its assertion and appli- 
cation of the principles upon which harmony can be estab- 
lished among the categories, is necessarily the final task of 
all the discussion. But now, in a summary and intro- 
ductory way, we wish to sketch a doctrine of the categories 
as the equivalent of a system of metaphysics. And here an 



86 A THEORY OF REALITY 

effective point of starting may be taken from the results of 
the analysis which has already been suggested. What, then, 
is it that any real thing — the rose-bush was our example — 
is known to be? It — this particular being — is known as 
having a number of perceivable and conceivable qualities; as 
existing in a variety of relations ; as changing in time and 
space ; as having parts and being measurable and numerable 
and comparable with other existences under similar forms 
and ends, and in obedience to the same laws. 

Now if we state the task of systematic metaphysics in a 
more abstract way, it is seen to concern these very concep- 
tions which every particular being embodies in a concrete way. 
The meaning and validity, in reality, of Being, Quality, Re- 
lation, Becoming and Change, Time, Space and Motion, Force 
and Causation, Quantity and Measure, Unity and Number, 
Forms and Laws, — and whatever other conceptions can 
vindicate a claim to belong to the true list of the categories, 
— are the particular subjects for the student of metaphysics 
to consider. They are the essential " momenta " in his theory 
of reality. At present it is our intention to maintain the 
four propositions just laid down as true, in general, of these 
categories. Being, Quality, Relation, etc., to the end of the 
list, are conceptions inseparable in thought and " aspects " 
of things inseparable in reality ; but each leads to the rec- 
ognition of every other, without, however, becoming identi- 
cal with any other ; and yet they all show an interior unity, 
such as is actually presented to cognition in the world of real 
beings and of actual events. And if recognizing these truths 
as fact, we ask ourselves how they are made possible and made 
full of meaning, we get our clue to the true theory of reality. 

That the categories are not separable in reality, as the con- 
crete realities themselves are, has already been shown in an 
analytic way. Every object of knowledge, whether physical 
thing or mind, in order that it may be known to be a (or one) 
real being, must be regarded as somehow separable from other 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 87 

beings, no matter how closely allied in kind or intimately re- 
lated in fact. This stone is ; ' one thing," because it can be 
lifted from the pile upon which it is lying and conveyed to 
another place, without forfeiture of its claim to identity ; and 
the same is true of every other stone in the pile. In the case 
of inorganic objects too huge and unmanageable for human 
force — as, for example, a mountain or a range of mountains 
— the discriminating act in perception or in conception 
performs the same office of separation. The mental act of 
discrimination makes the objects to be individual and actual 
things, on account of their perceived or imagined separability 
from other things. As the character of the known unity — 
that which constitutes it a real being — changes, the char- 
acter of the separation which is possible in the case of any 
individual example of such unity changes also. Broken from 
the tree, the bud, the twig, the branch, is still for a time 
known as actually entitled to the name which has garnered 
the qualities of its " thing-hood," — but only for a time. 
The embryo torn prematurely from the womb of the mother 
is still an embryo : but it is soon no longer an embryo, and 
it becomes almost at once not a living embryo. In the case 
of that unique kind of a unity in reality which we call a 
mind, the essential truth of the principle upon which we are 
insisting remains unchanged. Its unity as a mind, and its 
separableness from other minds, are dependent upon its own 
analytic and synthetic activity. But the actualizing of this 
particular unity, and its separableness from other most closely 
allied unities, has other " stuff " to handle than that which is 
known in the case of any inorganic or organic thing. 

The separableness of the categories in reality is not so. 
Stone, and bud, and embryo, and human self, are all alike 
actualizations of all the categories. And there is not a thing, 
or a single one mind, of which this is not also true. But to 
show this in detail would only repeat the analysis already 
sufficiently expanded. 



88 A THEORY OF REALITY 

That the categories are not independent and separable in 
thought appears more clearly as soon as we attempt to discuss 
thoroughly the second of the propositions made above. No 
single category is recognizable in cognitive experience or 
statable in thought, without leading to the recognition and 
the conception of every other category. The path is open 
between the categories. The Hegelian dialectic proposed 
to start from the simpler and more fundamental conceptions, 
and by moving forward on the path of a spiral, each suc- 
cessive part of which has an enlarging diameter, reach the 
heights of the Absolute Idea. But like every other system of 
evolution, when considered from the ontological point of view, 
this dialectic only evolved at the end of its thought-movement 
ideas that were involved at the very beginning. 

Let this truth be enforced by taking as a point of starting 
any one of the so-called categories : Being in Space, shall we 
say? But by " being in space" — really and not merely in 
imagination — we must understand some particular Thing oc- 
cupying some particular portion of space. For it is not space 
as a mere abstraction, which is to be considered, but space as 
a category, — that is, space as it is known, in application to 
real things. But nothing can be known or thought of as u in 
space," that does not define itself as " here " rather than 
" there." Its being at all in space, as all actual things 
necessarily are, involves its particularity ; to be nowhere in 
particular in space, but everywhere in general, or to be " all 
over " space, is to be unknowable and unthinkable in terms of 
this category. But this particularity which every actual 
thing has, as being in space, is necessarily, in part, conceived 
of as a relation to other beings that are also in space. Rela- 
tion in space, as belonging to real beings, is neither cognizable 
nor thinkable without implying movableness in space as an 
actual qualification of things. This is here, and that is there; 
but to be here, when another thing is there, is to be related to 
that other thing — " in space." 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 89 

What more, however, is involved in being a particular real 
thing here and yet actually related to another thing over there — 
both things " being in space," and having movableness in space ? 
At least as much as is involved in the being of the same par- 
ticular thing, irrespective of its position and movableness in 
space. That is, its particularity consists, for our knowledge 
and for our thought, in the possession of an assortment of 
qualities which it shares in common with other things, but 
with a peculiar or unique form of combination. This partic- 
ularizing of itself by having a peculiar combination of 
qualities is the feature essential for its being known as just 
this and no other particular thing, wherever situated in space, 
and however related to other things. But qualities cannot be 
known or thought, in connection w r ith relations in space, 
without introducing the conception of other forms than the 
spatial form of relation. The possession of any particular 
quality makes necessary the introduction of a new example 
of the category of relation. Considered as having color, for 
example, all things are related under the quality of color ; 
considered as having weight, under the relation of weight ; 
and so on. 

Being related and being movable, under the category of 
space, is known and thought of only as the validity of the 
category of change is recognized. Thus motion is custom* 
arily described as " change of place." The path open between 
the categories leads us from the thought of being related in 
space to the thought of change. But the particularity of 
things — the being, each one, this rather than some other — 
cannot be maintained if the category of change is limited to 
change of place. For any one thing, change of place involves 
a change of relations. When any one thing has changed its 
place, it can no longer be thought of as maintaining precisely 
all the old relations. But many qualities of things, at least, 
are so dependent upon the relations in space of the things 
having the qualities, that change in the qualities is the neces- 



90 A THEORY OF REALITY 

sary sequence of a change of their relations in space. Points 
of view do really determine changes in the qualities of things. 
Now if any objector maintains that while this is true of 
appearances, it is far from being true of realities, we must 
recall him to the line of argument which we are following. 
We are not speaking of change as an abstract and mystical 
conception having no reference to men's experience with 
realities ; but of the category of change as men know it to be 
applied to actual things, in terms of this experience. And 
we repeat that, considered in this way, the conception of a 
real thing changing its relations to other real things in space 
necessarily involves certain changes in the qualities of that 
thing. Such a change forces upon our thought the being of 
the thing as holding a different set of relations to the system 
of things. The thing that changes its position in space 
must always play another part from that which it formerly 
played within the world-system. And this it cannot do 
without developing, so to speak, certain new qualities or ways 
of asserting its own continued existence. 

The truth of the statements just made will be enforced and 
expanded, if we return to them by a somewhat different path. 
This may be done the more easily by introducing a substitute 
for one of the phrases which has already been frequently 
employed. " To be (really) in space " and " to occupy space " 
are not, perhaps, precisely identical thoughts. But if these 
two thoughts are referred to the actual cognitive experi- 
ence in which they arose, the former is seen to involve the lat- 
ter. Really to be in space is not merely to place the idea, or 
conception, of some particular thing ideally inside of an 
abstraction called " empty space." The inclusion and exclu- 
sion which men intend by such terms are no merely logical 
affair. When plain but serious people ask us, in somewhat 
vulgar English, whether we have any " idea " that so many 
men can be got into a room of such a size, they are not 
interested in a merely logical or grammatical puzzle. What 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 91 

they wish to know is whether, when the test of fact comes, 
such a number of solid, " non-squeezable " bodies will, under 
the appropriate actual relations, occupy thus much or more 
of space. For practical purposes, each thing is " in the 
space " which it occupies. If it can in any way be made to 
occupy more or less of space, then it becomes larger or 
smaller in space. Whatever ceases to occupy any space, 
either for perception or for conception, that ceases to exist in 
space. Nor is the propriety of substituting "the occupying of 
space " for the " really being in space " spoiled by any of the 
discoveries of physics and chemistry respecting the porous- 
ness of masses, or the separateness of the atoms within the 
molecule, or the universal diffusion of ether within the seem- 
ingly space-filling portions of ordinary matter. Here, then, 
undoubtedly lies open one path which leads us straight to 
another nest-full of categories. These are such as men 
express by the words " activity," " force," " causation," etc. 
To occupy space is to resist force with force ; it is for the 
being A to keep the being B out of the place X. 

Let it be noticed, however, that we have long since passed 
over divergences in the path by which such categories as those 
of quantity and measure, unity and number, might have been 
reached. Really to be a particular thing in space is necessa- 
rily to have magnitude and to be capable of having some stand- 
ard of magnitude applied as an actual event, in conception 
if not otherwise, with an accompanying process of numbering 
the successive applications of the standard. To be a thing 
is an impossibility, either to cognitive experience or to 
thought, without a certain measurable extension in space ; 
and also without implying the actuality of numerical rela- 
tions to other things. Motion also is impossible, either as 
an event actually perceived or as an occurrence rendered pos- 
sible barely to thought, without implying the categories of 
quantity and number. Indeed, it is this necessity of asking 
the questions, How much ? and How many ? which compels 



92 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the physicist to attribute "mass" to all matter as its most 
essential and universal characteristic. 

How conformity to law and, so to speak, compliance with 
ideal ends, on the part of the changes and the enduring rela- 
tions and qualities of every thing, are necessary "momenta" 
in the very being of that thing, it requires a more special 
analysis to show. This analysis will be undertaken at the 
proper time. It is enough now to remark that while change 
is necessary to the being of any particular thing, unrestricted 
change destroys the very conception of a real thing ; change 
without limit amounts to an annihilation of the real being 
subject to such change. Any being, A, may retain its claim 
to reality as some particular thing, while it passes through 
a succession of more or less important modifications, such as 
A l9 Ai, J.3, . . . A n ; and there is nothing but experience to 
tell us how far A n may be a departure from A l9 without de- 
stroying the very existence of A. But no thing can maintain 
its claim to continued existence under the name A, if it begins 
to run through such a series of changes as are indicated by 
2?i, J5 2 , B z , . . . -& n . Here, then, is plainly the conception of 
law and of final purpose at the very heart of every reality. 

That time is a form of cognition which is essential to the 
very construction of all concrete realities admits of no doubt. 
The path to this category, too, has lain open at every step in 
the course we have been traversing. Really to be in space 
each thing must vindicate its claim by occupying space 
through a certain amount of time. Actual movement in 
space can neither be known nor thought except as involving 
the category of time. Things that move, or are conceived of 
as movable, must be now here, and afterward there. The 
popular definition of movement as change of position empha- 
sizes a similar necessity to thought. And, indeed, the cate- 
gory of change itself — whether of position, or of relation, or 
of quality, or of state — implicates the reality of time in such 
manner that the first beginnings of a frame-work for the former 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 93 

category require, for their interpretation, the admission of 
the validity of the latter category. Change that is not really 
in time is empty abstraction ; actual change can take place 
only in time. What is meant by " being really in time " is a 
problem which demands a metaphysical solution ; but whatever 
is meant, just that, at the least, is an indispensable condition of 
-all actual change. Neither can men know the qualities and 
relations of things, whether the more transient or the more 
permanent, without conforming to the category of time. The 
path to this category lies open at every step for the mind 
which seeks a systematic doctrine of the categories. 

But the same truth might be as well illustrated by taking 
any other category as our point of starting. From whatever 
one of the various points of view we begin the survey of the 
corresponding aspect of reality, what is seen from this point 
cannot be exhaustively described without surveying all the 
aspects of reality. In the actual growth of knowledge, both 
for the individual and for the race, this observation proves 
itself true. The different pursuits of the individual, and the 
growth of the, different sciences in the history of the race, 
furnish grounds of selection among the possible points of 
view. For the mathematician or the tradesman, the cate- 
gories of quantity and of number are most impressive. For 
the student of physics and chemistry, for the machinist and 
manufacturer, these categories with the added conceptions of 
causation and force. But in their treatment of concrete real- 
ities both mathematics and physics are compelled to fix their 
eyes on the actual relations and qualities of things in time 
and in space. While law and final purpose, " ruling over " 
and " dwelling in " things, are of eternal, practical and ethical 
interest to all men. If, then, geometrical figures be employed 
in illustration — the system of the categories is not to be 
compared to a thin straight line, or to a curve returning con- 
tinuously upon itself, and running from pure Being to an all- 
comprehensive Idea. Neither is it a pyramid or cone, erected 



94 A THEORY OF REALITY 

and brought to a condition of equilibrium when resting upon 
either end. It is rather a constantly revolving, perfect, and 
transparent sphere. Whichever aspect of this sphere is first 
presented to the eye, one enjoys the opportunity of seeing, not 
only what this aspect is, but how this particular aspect stands 
related to the entire sphere. The Hegelian path, with its 
heavy, monotonous " tit-tat-too " tread, from Seyn, through 
Wesen, to Idee, — taking Daseyn, Filrsichseyn, Quantitat, 
Maas, etc., etc., in regular order by the way, — is by no 
means the only path open between the categories. Every one 
of these conceptions leads to every other, obviously enough, if 
not with an equal directness. And no one of them alone 
presents the mind with a valid and complete picture of the 
reality of even the meanest thing. Nor can any one of them 
be deified, as it were, and made the equal of the All-Reality. 
And yet the third of the propositions already laid down 
is equally true of the categories. No one of them is 
analyzable into any other. If a separable and independent 
existence or application to the whole of human cognitive 
experience must be denied for each, on the contrary a sort 
of independence must be maintained for each. To uphold 
this claim successfully requires such detailed discussion as it 
belongs to the different chapters of metaphysical system to 
give. But the nature of the discussion is itself a sufficient 
proof of the general truthfulness of the proposition. For 
example, it has already been shown that we cannot interpret 
satisfactorily the cognitive experience of men with any par- 
ticular thing as " really in space " without recognizing also 
the fact that the same thing is known as " occupying space." 
And thus the path lies open from the category of Space to the 
category of Force. But force cannot be resolved into space, 
or into motion or change. Our thought puts this conception 
of force, as exerted by the thing, into the very nature of that 
thing as affording the explanation of the phenomenon called 
" occupying space." The cause of the things occupying so 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 95 

much of space is the character and amount of the force of 
the thing. The cause of the thing's movement or arrest of 
movement in space, and the cause of all its other changes 
of states and relations, is some kind of force, somewhere 
seated, either within this thing or within other things. Thus 
does the mind work around from category to category, as its 
experience assumes the different possible points of view. 
Force — that is to say — is ''in" the relation, "of" cause, 
"to" motion, "in" space, and "in" time, and "of" every 
other change "in" the qualities "of" any being. But each 
one of these prepositions (- in," " to," and " of ") is designed 
to mark some sort of a relation ; and each of the relations 
which each of the prepositions marks implies the application 
of the category of force to the solution of the problem, What 
is it really to be ? in a somewhat different way. 

Let the effort be made, however, to resolve the category 
of force into any of the other categories, to which it seems 
itself related in such manifold curious ways, and how un- 
satisfactory the result ! This is, indeed, an attempt which 
has often been made in the past, and which is frequent and 
fascinating enough at the present time, both among physi- 
cists and among metaphysicians. It will receive the detailed 
criticism which it invites, at the proper time. We are fre- 
quently presented with such conceptions of individual realities 
as that, for example, at which Uphues 1 arrives : " Things 
consist for us," says this author, " of the sum of the proper- 
ties which we learn to know by the senses, that with approxi- 
mate regularity occur at the same time with each, and appear 
as belonging together. They are the constituents of things 
{Bestandtheile), because of this regular recurrence and be- 
longing together." The conception of force, as well as the 
conception of essence, in its application to the reality of 
things, Uphues then sets aside as barren and useless. Now 
in this way one may doubtless arrive at a descriptive cata- 

1 Psychologie des Erkennens, p. 2. 



96 A THEORY OF REALITY 

logue of those sensuous qualifications which any particular 
thing has for us ; and which enable us in terms of sense- 
perception to define what is that particular thing as capable 
of being sensuously distinguished from other things. But to 
constitute such a "consistency" of things, by exclusion 
of the conception of force, is to cut the very heart out of the 
reality of the thing. For it is only as some sort of a centre 
of being, on which may be concentrated the active energies 
of other things, and from which active energies may proceed 
to terminate upon other things, that any particular object 
indicates to thought its claim to reality. To be sure, all 
language like that just used is figurative ; and the real trans- 
actions that correspond to it need further to be investigated. 
But its figurative use is at least necessary in order faithfully 
to express all that every particular real thing is known to 
be. Nay ! its figurative use reminds us of the very gist of 
the reality which each particular thing is known to possess. 

The vacillation of modern physics upon the point of this 
category is an instructive spectacle for the metaphysician. If 
it takes place in a controversial way, it shows that the thrust 
of the spear has reached a vital part ; and the whole body of 
science is thus set quivering with the deadly wound. In fact, 
one fundamental form of modern physical theory would re- 
duce all our most ultimate cognitions of matter and of physical 
changes to terms of force. But another form of physical 
theory will hear nothing of force ; it would willingly exclude 
any such entity or essential manifestation of an entity from 
the valid conceptions of modern science. We will not just 
now press the questions : What, in the first case, becomes of 
science as dealing with concrete realities ? or, What, in the 
second case, becomes of science as having to do with causes ? 
We will only call attention to the fact that, with the banish- 
ment of this conception, all the genuine dynamics (not to say 
the dynamite) is gone from man's view of the physical uni- 
verse. Things become pale shadows, trooping here and there 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 97 

in a fleshless and ghostly fashion, — all life departed from 
them. When the category of Force, and its allied category 
of Cause, leaves the world of reality, how do its objects differ 
from the most unreal of mental images, from the uncontrolled 
mental train of dream-life ? 

On the other hand, we find ourselves equally unable to 
resolve any of the other categories into the conception of 
force. No amount or kind of mere force could produce either 
time or space, as these two conceptions are found to belong 
to things in our experience with them. I may think, indeed, 
of the actual things, or of the Absolute Being which I con- 
ceive to be the Ground of things, as the force or cause that 
compels me to cognize external objects under space-form and 
time-form. I may find myself induced to acknowledge that 
the ultimate cause of my apprehension and thought of all 
things as spatial and temporal is the influence — or force 
exercised — upon me, of the World-Ground. Or, to adopt for 
the moment the Berkeleyan hypothesis : the being of things — 
all the being they have as things — is their being perceived 
by me and by other finite minds ; but their being in reality is 
their being willed by God, in an orderly way, to arise in my 
consciousness and in the consciousness of other men. But 
this appendix — " in an orderly way " — introduces some- 
thing more than mere force ; and it defines vaguely the terms 
under which must fall, and actually do fall, all my valid cog- 
nitions of real things. Nor is this simply " an orderly way ; " 
— as though any kind of an orderly way would equally well 
answer to my experience. There is one kind of an orderly 
way, which is time ; and another kind, which is space ; and 
there are as many kinds of orderly ways as there are so-called 
laws, maintaining themselves over or between things, and 
thus keeping the things in order. From our present human 
point of view, these ways are innumerable. But those par- 
ticular orderly ways which men call " space " and " time " 
stand in very different relations to our cognitive experience 



98 A THEORY OF REALITY 

from the relations in which stand the many physical, chemi- 
cal, and biological ways of the ordering of things. Space and 
Time are categories ; and the laws of gravitation, or of chemi- 
cal equivalence, or of biogenesis and development, are not 
categories. As categories, space and time maintain a peculiar 
kind of independence, — suffering themselves to serve as paths 
along which we may pass from one category to another, and 
yet refusing to be absorbed in any of the other categories. 

While, however, all the categories correspond in a general 
way to the three propositions made above, there exist many 
curious subordinate interrelations amongst them. To use 
again the figure of speech which has already served the same 
purpose : The path is indeed open between all the categories, 
and the course of reflective thinking permits and requires free 
movement from each one to every other ; but the path is not 
equally direct between them all. These fundamental concep- 
tions divide themselves into certain pairs and groups which 
seem to be more nearly contiguous, one to another. An his- 
torical study of the whole subject would show how both a 
naive and a critical ontology have found themselves compelled 
to consider its problems in accordance with this truth. The 
popular thinking connects together the conceptions of sub- 
stance and attribute, of magnitude and number, of force and 
cause, of space and time, of law, or a certain orderliness in 
behavior, and of an end to be reached by obeying the law. 

The " Critique " of all cognitive faculty, which in its 
author's profound judgment would so describe and arrange 
the categories as that this work would need henceforth no 
supplementing or amendment, divided them into two great 
groups. In the first of these groups were space and time, the 
a priori forms of all presentative knowledge (or sensuous 
" awareness ") of things ; and the critical doctrine of such 
knowledge was summarily dismissed with a few pages, full 
of uncriticized assumptions on so-called "Transcendental 
^Esthetic." The other main group comprised the twelve re- 



HAKMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 99 

inaining categories ; and these are the a priori forms of all 
those judgments about things which constitute the sum-total 
of experience. They fall naturally into four subordinate 
groups of three in each group. The exposition and justifica- 
tion of this system gave the critic, according to his own con- 
fession, a great amount of trouble ; and the manner of its 
being accomplished has given his readers no little trouble 
ever since. But the important truth now to be noticed is that, 
somehow, peculiar and curious interrelations of a more or less 
orderly kind are always found by the analyst to exist among 
the categories. Kant himself, after all his labor to answer 
the question of right (Quid juris f) and so afford a satisfac- 
tory " Deduction of the Categories," does not even raise in 
satisfactory form the most fundamental and interesting criti- 
cal question of all. Why should these conceptions divide 
themselves up in this particular way, unless some deeper-lying 
principle belonging to the world of reality can be discovered 
to account for the division itself ? On the psychological and 
epistemological side, the reasons for any such pairing, or 
grouping, of the fundamental forms of cognition must be 
found in the very nature of cognition itself. But regarded 
from the more distinctively metaphysical side, the reasons must 
lie deep in the very nature of Reality. 

Since we have now been led to thoughts which depend upon 
combining the third and the fourth of our general propositions 
respecting all the categories, they may fitly be illustrated 
by an example or two. Either one of the several examples 
already enumerated will serve to illustrate this singularity 
in the structure of human knowledge. Undoubtedly, mag- 
nitude and number constitute a sort of pair among the 
categories which sustain certain closer than the customary 
relations to each other. Neither precise knowledge nor logical 
thought about things in terms of quantity is possible without 
immediately introducing terms of number, as a sort of twin 
vehicle to the necessary mental processes. How large ? is a 



100 A THEORY OF REALITY 

question which can be definitively answered only in terms that 
imply counting. But, in turn, the question, How many? im- 
plies some sort of measurement and consequent delimitation of 
each thing which offers itself to be counted in making up the 
answer to every such question. The psychological explana- 
tion of this " pairing " of the categories of quantity and 
number is undoubtedly to be found in the actual use made 
of the faculties in measuring and numbering things. Vague 
notions of larger and smaller, of difference and sameness of 
direction do not indeed depend upon developing the power 
of " enumeration." But precise measurement of things, 
whether for practical or for theoretical purposes, is impossible 
without counting ; nor can we count things without some, at 
least, rough and preliminary measurement of them. If this 
fact of experience is to enter into a theory of reality, it must 
appear that there is something in the nature of things which 
serves as a ground, or warrant, for the close connection 
of these two categories in man's cognitions and in all his 
reflective thinking. That is, it must be shown that the meas- 
ureableness and numberableness of concrete realities are 
interdependent, and yet not identical, aspects of tilings. And 
it needs finally to appear that the Unity which a systematic 
metaphysics discovers in Reality is, so to speak, the bond which 
brings these categories into their actual close relation. 

Another example of essentially the same truth may be 
found by the critical analysis of the allied conceptions, space 
and time. These two so-called categories are not, indeed, a 
" pair " in the same sense in which this word may be figura- 
tively applied to quantity and number. But analysis of the 
cognitive experience which actually connects them discovers 
many curious relations between them. How the mind finds 
itself compelled to make use of terms that primarily apply 
to space relations in order to express relations of time, is too 
well known to need detailed illustration. Yet " contiguity," 
" extension," " equality," " movement," etc., as applied to 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 101 

temporal relations, stand for conceptions which contradict 
the most important characteristics of the same terms as 
applied to spatial relations. You can neither actually, nor in 
thought, bring two times that are separate from each other 
into contiguity ; nor can you conceive of them as actually 
moved and superimposed so as to demonstrate their equality. 
The line of time violates the most important condition which 
is observed by every line drawn in space : its successive parts 
do not " stay put ; " since their very essence is that they shall 
succeed each other in their real existence — whatever the 
nature of this existence may be found to be. On the other 
hand, neither experience nor thought can present things as 
contiguous, or as extended, or as moved in space so as to 
show their equality or inequality, without dependence upon 
the category of time. All occupying of space, or change in 
space, must be known as an enduring or a succession, in time. 

Like a brooding and fostering nurse, or rather like a pro- 
lific mother, does Relation itself stand related to all the other 
categories. No other one of these forms of cognition appears 
as so ubiquitous in presence, and yet variable in character. 
Nothing static is there about actual relations ; although re- 
lations themselves are to be conceived of only in case we can, 
for a moment at least, fix and render stationary the ceaseless 
changes of qualities, states, and positions in space. Of this 
experience the psychological genesis is undoubtedly to be 
found in the fact that knowing itself, on its intellectual side, 
is essentially a relating activity. More on this point, how- 
ever, would be to anticipate what must be said later. 

The significance for any consistent theory of reality of such 
curious interrelations amongst the fundamental forms of 
knowledge has received far too little attention hitherto by 
students of systematic metaphysics. It is well enough, 
indeed, for the students of the positive sciences to take these 
interrelations for granted. But what do they have to tell us 
about the nature of the World as a Unitv of concrete realities 



102 A THEORY OF REALITY 

constituted under terms of an order so mysterious and exciting 
to philosophical reflection ? What sort of a Reality must that 
be which can alone harmonize these differences and seeming 
oppositions among the categories, while allowing to each its 
independence and its proper place within the unique system ? 
It is the answer to this inquiry which we hope to furnish by 
subsequent detailed discussions. 

The partial unification of the categories, as pairs or subor- 
dinate groups, fitly leads our consideration to the fourth prop- 
osition. All the categories, when considered as forms of 
knowledge, constitute a sort of interior unity ; and when 
considered as forms of the existence of things, they demand 
some theory which will expound the Nature of Reality as a 
harmonious and unitary system. On its epistemological side, 
no one ever saw this truth more clearly, or labored more dili- 
gently to expose and defend it, than did Kant. But since 
his systematic metaphysics was simply an orderly exposition 
of the categories regarded as mere forms of cognition, his 
theory of reality could not be founded in man's total experi- 
ence, but only in man's practical needs. It was ready-made 
for one who would save his faith, by agreeing to surrender the 
hope of knowledge. For us the actual unity which the forms 
of all men's cognitive experience achieves, more or less per- 
fectly, seems to demand and to warrant an explanation which 
shall reveal the very nature of reality. The world as known 
to man — and here we agree with Kant in saying that this is 
the only world with which metaphysics can deal — is some 
sort of a unity. To answer by reflective treatment of the 
categories the question, What sort of a unity ? is a supreme 
problem for metaphysical system. 

Three views are possible as to the relations between them- 
selves sustained by those forms of cognitive experience which 
naive common-sense and the positive sciences alike agree to 
accept as applicable to all known realities. The categories 
may be regarded in an individualistic way, as it were ; they 



HARMOXY OF THE CATEGORIES 103 

may be taken simply as accidental and unrelated entities, or 
forms, or laws, of things, which are to be accepted without 
recognition of any necessity for further critical thinking 
But to continue in this point of view is to refuse to phi- 
losophize. From this uncritical position that strange circle in 
actual cognition — namely, trans-subjective existence is im- 
plicate in experience, but experience itself assumes, for its 
own explanation, such existence : or being and knowledge 
are related in such manner that neither can be regarded as 
a point of starting independent of the other — offers no prob- 
lems worthy of reflective consideration. As soon, however, as 
the different categories are studied in a comparative way, the 
recognition follows of some kind of relations among them 
which demand a persistent effort at harmony. The result of 
this effort may be a certain doctrine of antinomies, or fun- 
damental and irreconcilable contradictions among the cat- 
egories. And this is the second of the three possible ways of 
viewing the forms of human cognition. 

This doctrine, that the categories show irreconcilable con- 
tradictions, may be held and expounded in any one of several 
different ways. There is. for example, that earlier form which 
belonged to the Greek scepticism, and which has ever since 
furnished puzzles for children and for somewhat childish 
adult minds. In fact, and as tested by man's experience 
with real things. Achilles does overtake the tortoise : the 
arrow does fly from the bow-string to the mark : and every 
single being is known under an indefinite number of diversi- 
fied qualifications. Yet Zeno and Heraclitus go on disputing. 
And by refining abstractions of Space. Time. Motion. Quan- 
tity, and Number, it is demonstrated that no one of these well- 
known events can in reality possibly be. 

How Kant regarded the categories, from the subjective 
point of view, has already been made the subject of critical 
remark. They constitute, in his view, an orderly svstem. 
with the unity necessarily belonging to the product of a mind ; 



104 A THEORY OF REALITY 

that is, both sense and understanding are brought into harmony 
of action by the mediation of imagination. Thus the system 
of known realities attains a partial and dependent kind of 
unity ; because it is itself nothing other than the product of 
the continued activity of mind — upon the raw material of un- 
organized experience. Further, the service of an illusory 
dialectic succeeds in bringing these organized experiences 
toward but never into, the unity of the supreme ideas of 
reason. The moment, however, we try to regard the cat- 
egories as applicable to trans-subjective realities — to what 
Kant calls Dinge-ayi-sich or Gegenstande uberhaupt, — the 
most stubborn and irreducible contradictions arise between 
them. They now become " paired off " in no amicable fashion ; 
the rather are they divided off against each other, as thesis 
and antithesis, and made ready for an internecine war. The 
case is as though the principle of tribal " blood-revenge " had 
been let loose among the categories. Out of their legitimate 
territory any one who will may destroy them and have no 
account to render at the bar of metaphysics, of ethics, or 
of religion. 

But the critical work of Kant with the categories leaves at 
least a certain large and comforting remnant of knowledge. 
Within their proper sphere they act in harmony ; and to the 
critic, as well as to the user of them, from the Kantian point 
of view they appear as a most wonderful and orderly, yet mys- 
terious system of forms. Neither is it warrantable to speak 
of the world which they result in producing as the realm of 
mere " Appearance ; " it is rather the world of known reali- 
ties, although of phenomenal realities. Moreover, by other 
avenues of approach we are to be given enough of faith, if not 
of knowledge, that shall disclose the practically acceptable 
constitution of that Ultimate Reality to which the categories 
do not apply. By the work of critics like Mr. Bradley, how- 
ever, all the Kantian categories are thrown into the most 
determined and irreconcilable conflict, within that very sphere 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 105 

within which Kant himself held that they constitue a perfect 
and harmonious system. That is to say, when the attempt is 
made to apply the forms of cognition to the concrete realities 
of our experience, they show such internal contradictions as 
compel the belief that these realities themselves are mere 
seeming. And thus the doctrine of antinomies, as inherently 
irreconcilable oppositions among the categories in their appli- 
cation to the actual concrete cognition of men, returns to essen- 
tially the same form as that given it by the ancient Greek 
scepticism and agnosticism. All known real tilings are now 
at " loggerheads " with one another. And the Reality becomes 
identified with the unrelated (the " uncategorized " — if we 
may be pardoned such a word) One. 

It is the third view touching the relations that exist between 
the categories which it is our purpose to maintain. They are 
not to be considered as disconnected and unrelated forms 
either of knowledge or of being, — picked up haphazard and 
adopted as though no mutual understanding or common signi- 
ficance were presupposed. Neither does any fair criticism, 
however searching, show internal and irreconcilable contradic- 
tions among them. The rather are they, both when in use for 
actual work-a-day or scientific knowledge and when, in hospi- 
tal, lying under the scalpel of the analyst, a beautiful and 
wondrous system. They do not need to be actually systema- 
tized by logician or metaphysician. The surgeon's knife, 
whether his subject be alive or the dissection be post mortem, 
does not create the organism. A sort of organic character, 
a unifying life, belongs to the categories : the result of analy- 
sis is to discover it there. And the entire task of systematic 
metaphysics is not accomplished — it is scarcely properly 
begun — until a sympathetic insight into the truth of reality 
has operated in a synthetic way to reconstruct in theory this 
actually existing harmony. 

The fuller proof of this comparative doctrine, which asserts 
a significant interior unity as belonging to all concrete appli- 



106 A THEORY OF REALITY 

cation of the categories, must await for its details the con- 
clusion of our work. Indeed, the whole circle of proofs takes 
us beyond the limits even of a general system of ontology ; 
it demands a reflective treatment of the ideals of conduct, 
art, and religion. But the ultimate grounds on which these 
proofs rest, and from the exploration of which the proofs pro- 
ceed, are all laid in man's indubitable cognitive experience. 

First, then, the unity of the categories is proved by the fact 
that every act of knowledge results from the harmonious 
union of all these forms of knowledge, and thus gives to the 
mind an object of knowledge which is itself a concrete example 
of their real union. The rather may it be said, that, down 
below all proof, and so too deep for proof, lies the nature of 
the process of knowledge itself. This process, as experienced 
and not proved, is actually a unifying actus of mind in which 
all the activities of mind harmoniously take part. The object 
known is actually a being that answers the quest for unity by 
presenting itself to the mind as real, and really possessed of 
the categories. Every known existence is characterized to 
thought by the categories in a unifying way ; because it is 
constituted in reality as a unity of the same categories. 

Second : The unity which the development of all the partic- 
ular sciences is giving to man's conception of the real world 
is a further proof of the unity of the categories. But this 
proof, too, — strictly speaking, — lies down below all proof, 
and yet is the surer because its foundations are too deep for 
proof. It is a sort of faith in the world's unity which is only 
partially based upon experience. The great fact in the sci- 
entific progress of the race is its tendency toward unification, 
— its growth toward a unitary conception of those diverse real- 
ities and their manifold connections which are given to every 
individual and to every generation of men. More and more 
continually is the complex of things and minds conceived of 
by man as a Cosmos — an orderly Whole. Hasty generaliza- 
tions abound and always have abounded, often to defeat tern- 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 107 

porarily the very end at which they were themselves aimed. 
Exceptions exist to all, or nearly all, known laws. Irregul- 
arities occur which compel science to suspect or to modify its 
most select formulas. The particular departments of human 
knowledge set up their sometimes sharp and petty contro- 
versies for supremacy ; or they proclaim good-natured offers 
to effect a harmony on terms of surrender without reserve. 
And yet the time comes when these sciences must stretch out 
hands toward each other, and confess : " We have erred ; but 
come now, for we are brothers, and why should we not help 
each other and dwell together in unity ? " Now even if this 
progressive unification is a manifestation of the illusory dia- 
lectic which Kant wished to chasten, it is nevertheless an actual 
result due to the growth of human experience by way of an 
increasing knowledge of the real nature and actual relations 
of things. And if it is a real growth of cognitive experience, 
— in any defensible meaning of the word " cognitive," — 
then the real world is more and more known as some sort of 
a Unity. This Unity in Reality is that actual harmonizing 
of the categories which, from the ideal points of view, is so 
satisfactory to human reason. 

But, thirdly, the unity of the categories is shown by the 
results of a considerate and yet critical examination of the 
categories. To effect this examination in detail is the task 
more immediately before us. Any success in this task ought 
to show that lack of harmony, or apparent contradiction, 
amongst them results either from insufficient analysis or 
from a misleading dialectics. It is, we believe, in every case, 
the distorted abstractions of the metaphysician, and not the 
actual forms of cognitive experience, which refuse to harmo- 
nize with one another. To make peace is better than to make 
trouble ; to unite in thought that which goes together in 
knowledge and in reality is more honorable than to separate 
between friendly and allied conceptions. The former is, 
indeed, the harder thing to do. It is always easier to display 



108 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the imperfections, limitations, gaps, and disastrous pitfalls of 
the human mind, than to give a sympathetic and apprecia- 
tive interpretation to the common facts of man's experience 
with himself and with external nature. But if the task is 
greater, so also is the reward of its accomplishment. 

At the close of these introductory chapters we sum up 
certain conclusions already reached, and briefly set forth the 
principal truths which it is our aim to establish. 

Systematic metaphysics is a proper subject for the philo- 
sophic mind ; for it is nothing worse or more impossible than 
the effort to subject the facts of our cognitive experience 
touching the nature of reality to a critical examination by 
reflective thinking. As ontology it takes a positive and 
fairly hopeful view of the epistemological problem involved ; 
supposing that this is not a task impossible for man, it under- 
takes that task with a sober confidence in human reason. 
But it continually insists on bringing its reflections and in- 
sights back to the testing of the facts disclosed by ordinary 
experience and by the positive sciences. 

Since real beings furnish the field for metaphysical research, 
and the metaphysical problem is faithfully to characterize the 
real according to the accepted forms of all cognition, we recog- 
nize a distinction between "appearance" and " reality." But 
this distinction cannot be so set up and carried through as to 
divide the cognitive faculties, or the results of their activity 
in the evolution of knowledge for the individual or for the 
race, into two separate parts, to be called by these two names. 
On the contrary, we find the very word " appearance " most 
highly significant of the nature of reality. 

When the student of metaphysics directs his attention to 
that one word, Reality, which is employed somehow to gather 
together and express the whole field of his research, — the 
subject he wishes to get at, — he finds this word, of all others, 
most rich, and yet somehow vague in content. But since he 
cannot investigate the infinite particulars with which the 



HARMONY OF THE CATEGORIES 109 

different branches of human knowledge have to do, he raises 
the more general question to define his problem : What is it 
really to be, as all things and mind are in their varying rela- 
tions, transactions, and qualities ? This general question 
must be answered by a reference to those universal forms of 
knowledge which men accept as the forms of real being — 
of the minds and things that really are. 

Thus, then, to study the fundamental data of human cog- 
nitive experience, and to reduce them to a unitary conception 
which shall provide for all the varied realities of the world in 
some harmonizing way, is the task of the student of meta- 
physics. His conclusions will have the value — and only the 
value (although why should this be considered a small 
thing ? ) — of a tenable Theory of Reality. 

The detailed exposition of such a theory, which will now 
follow, involves the discussion and illustration of the follow- 
ing fundamental truths. Each of them is a truth which has 
its roots in the primitive facts and in the maturer growths of 
knowledge, but which is also ontological in its nature and 
application. First: All the categories are forms, both of 
knowledge and of being, that are actually and indubitably 
realized in all our cognitive experience with the Self. I am a 
Being whose existence and whose self-knowledge is consti- 
tuted a Unity, because I am a self-conscious Self. Second : 
All the real beings which are known as Things, together 
with their attributes, changes, relations, laws, etc., are made 
actual in our cognitive experience only as there is projected 
into them, so to speak, the same forms of Being which 
I know the Self to have. The categories, so far as they 
can get any recognizable meaning in their application to 
actual things, are the same categories as those under which 
we know the Being of the Self. Third : The Unity in a world 
of Reality which all things and all minds have is known in 
terms of an all-inclusive and Absolute Self. Only the con- 
ception of " Self-hood " can bring into actual and cognizable 



110 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Unity that complex of concrete realities which both the work- 
a-day and the scientific experience of the race contains. And 
this unifying conception is properly held by the mind, not as 
a mere conception, but as the ultimate form given by reflec- 
tive thinking to our knowledge of Reality. 



CHAPTER V 

PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 

It follows from what has already been shown that none of 
the fundamental forms of knowledge and of reality can be 
critically examined without more or less of implicit reference 
to all the others. For the actual system of things which we 
call the " World " as known to men is no mere logical 
arrangement of mental forms, but the vital and interacting 
unity of an infinite number of particular realities. And 
moreover, each one of these particular realities is itself a sort 
of actual system, or actualized unity of all the forms of being. 
It is therefore impossible to say all that particular real 
beings, with their entire outfit of qualities are, without dis- 
cussing all the categories. But just now a problem is before 
us which must be more closely defined ; and if it were not for 
certain objections, — mostly verbal and historical, rather than 
essential, — the definition of this problem might be expressed 
in terms of two allied conceptions. These two constitute a 
sort of pair, the first of which (curiously enough) is particu- 
larly shy of yielding to any fixed and apprehensible termi- 
nology. Every particular real being — let us say tentatively — 
is necessarily a substance with attributes, a subject of many 
states, an existence which does and experiences various changes 
or has various qualities. To adopt the uncouth language of 
modern science, which here corresponds to that of Aristotle, it 
is a " that-which," existing under an indefinite number of condi- 
tions and relations, that require to be determined by telling 
stories about the "what" of the same thing. Its "that- 



112 A THEORY OF REALITY 

which " is assumed or " posited " by science ; its " what " 
is described by science. 

The most scanty reading in the history of metaphysical 
speculation shows how much debate has been had in the past 
over the conception of " Substantiality." Or, without essen- 
tially changing the thoughts involved, we may substitute for 
this word the terms " pure being," " being as such," or Ding- 
an-sicJi. But the current metaphysical or awta'-metaphysical 
literature shows how distasteful and unpopular, even in scholas- 
tic circles, all such abstract terminology has now become. This 
is, no doubt, partly the result of the crimes against both ex- 
perience and clear thinking which have been committed in 
the name of this conception. These crimes are certainly 
neither small in magnitude nor few in number. But perhaps 
it is time to call off from this hunt the attention of minds 
seriously disposed to analysis and reflective thinking ; and to 
remind them that such words as " substantiality ; " pure be- 
ing," Ding-an-sich, etc., at least represent many an honest 
attempt at solving the mystery of existence. Nor do we con- 
sider it self-evident that some of this hasty scorn in the cur- 
rent psychology and philosophy may not be due to a certain 
popular shallowness of thought and of speech. At any rate, 
it is certain that the most radically destructive assault upon 
the old-fashioned category of substance can only have a nega- 
tive result. Its criticism is, at best, only pioneer work ; it 
removes obstacles and clears the path ; but it plants no seed 
and harvests no crop. 

The truth remains that there is in all human cognitive 
experience a persistent and ineradicable something which 
corresponds to the metaphysical term " substance." This 
something is always posited as necessary to the actual exist- 
ence of any thing, or of the whole world of minds and things. 
The denial of this something is the one bare asseveration of 
the current phenomenism which shows conclusively the in- 
sufficiency of its analysis of experience ; which puts it into 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 113 

irreconcilable conflict with the common-sense of mankind, 
with the assumptions and conclusions of all the particular 
sciences, with the inferences that flow from the language and 
actions of men, and with all the most abiding and trust- 
worthy conclusions of the world's greatest thinkers. This 
denial also makes the psychology and the philosophy which 
espouses phenomenism an object of little esteem, except 
among the small group of scholastics with whom it is 
current. 

Use, then, what terms the metaphysician will, he must 
reckon with the same ontological problem. Such words as 
" substantiality," " pure being," Ding-an-sich, etc., and the 
conception corresponding to them, have been so persistent in 
philosophy that something actual and universal in our human 
experience must be recognized which corresponds to them, — 
so persistent and expressive that something to correspond 
must belong to the very nature of reality. 

Every particular real Thing is a substance with attributes, 
a being that has qualities ; every " phenomenal existence " 
implies as its ground, or cause, some Ding-an-sich. Every con- 
crete reality is possessed of qualities ; or every actual existence 
has, and not merely is, the perceptive or the logical totality of 
its qualities. So that to be real requires the recognition of 
something besides a more or less persistently recurrent group 
of connected phenomena. The " thing-hood " of each particu- 
lar thing is more than the mere sum of its qualities. These 
are abstract and now old-fashioned ways of expressing one of 
the most difficult problems which meet the student of meta- 
physics. We are going for this reason, as much as possible 
conveniently, to avoid them. But the problem which has so 
often been expressed, or even apparently solved, in these and 
similar phrases, compels us to raise a number of questions like 
the following : Why does such a conception emerge at all in 
consciousness ? What that cannot well be questioned, and is 
fundamental in human cognitive experience, corresponds to 



114 A THEORY OF REALITY 

this conception ? What does critical examination learn of 
this conception which is adapted, so to speak, to apply to all 
that men call real — both minds and things ? 

If any of the questions just raised be taken before the " plain 
man's consciousness," we can obtain — no matter how persist- 
ently we question it — only very unsatisfactory replies. The 
unanalyzed judgment and language of men insists on main- 
taining this mysterious conception of " substance " or " real 
being ; " but, on being pressed to explain the conception, it 
can only repeat the mystery, either with what amounts to a 
dumb show of gesturing or in some obscure figures of speech. 
This is chiefly true, however, only of physical things ; it is less 
true by far of the Self. And for the mind upon which the 
full light of a reflective experience has shined, doubt about 
the substantiality of the Self is impossible. 

" Sensuous experience" (Sinnliche Umpfindung') , says Lotze, 1 
" has always been looked upon as that ground of cogni- 
tion which is our warrant for the presence of real Being." 
Another writer goes so far as to declare that " sentient 
experience, in short, is reality, and what is not this is not 
real : " But Mr. Bradley's phrase is much the most compre- 
hensive, for it is immediately defined by him in this more 
expanded form : " Feeling, thought, and volition (any groups 
under which we class psychical phenomena) are all the material 
of existence." 2 Such a declaration as this must be accepted 
as final if we may be allowed to give it the following shape : 
In cognitive experience all we can mean by reality is implicated. 
If, however, appeal be made to this experience in its uncritical 
form the answer will no doubt take its point of starting from 
the sense-perception of things. Ask the " plain man " what it 
is in that particular thing which makes it real to him, and 
he will begin to pass in review his sensuous experiences. It 
— the " thing " — is to be seen as having such a color and as 

1 Metaphysic, Book I., chap, i., § 2. 

2 Appearance and Reality, p. 144. 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 115 

being so large and so shaped ; to be felt as rough or smooth, 
light or heavy ; it is known to have such other properties and 
a variety of well-known uses ; and, perhaps, to have such a 
name and to belong to such a familiar class of objects. The 
proof that any particular answer " as to what " the thing is has 
been correctly given must be taken back in detail to the 
renewed testing of the senses of the same person, or of the 
senses of other persons. And if persistent doubt arises con- 
cerning the correctness of the first answers, then if the thing 
endures for some time " substantially " (as it is naively said) 
unchanged to sense-experience it may be considered to have 
dispelled any doubt over the reality of its existence. 

But now let appeal be made to this same uncritical experi- 
ence with the inquiry whether the reality of any particular 
being consist merely in the continuance together, as a fact of 
sense-experience, of some group of sensuous qualities. It will 
be somewhat difficult, indeed, for the plain man fully to com- 
prehend such an inquiry. But sooner by far will he credit the 
tale that any most solid thing has ceased to be, and even that 
its entire substance has passed from the world of real beings, 
than credit the supposition that, so long as anything is known 
to be, its reality can be fully conceived of as a mere " bundle " 
of qualities put together in his own sense-experience. You 
may easily convince him you have " burned up " the tree he saw 
yesterday ; but you cannot convince him that the tree he sees 
to-day has no trans-subjective reality. Annihilation of things 
is much easier credited than their mere subjectivity. 

Now here, indeed, is a strange puzzle proposed to meta- 
physics by the popular way of regarding real things in all the 
more primary acts of human cognition. The particular thing 
is always known to men only as it has certain specific qualities ; 
it may be conceived of, actually known, to have disappeared 
from existence with all its qualities ; but so long as it really 
does exist, it cannot be merely a grouping of qualities. In 
other and figurative language : in order to be a thing, there 



116 A THEORY OF REALITY 

must be an actual " point of attachment " for the qualities ; 
and this point of attachment must be conceived of as 
enduring throughout the real existence of the thing. Only 
thus is any particular Being able to produce the conviction 
that it is ; otherwise all our knowledge concerning what it is 
would not amount to endowing it with reality. Indeed, its 
reality is no endowment of our cognitive faculties ; whereas 
its qualities may be considered as the way in which it is 
known by these faculties. 

If now the physical and natural sciences be inquired of, 
one by one, what they understand by the real being of any 
particular Thing, they answer with a wonderful enriching of 
human knowledge as to the properties of things. Each of 
these sciences has volumes which discourse at length respect- 
ing its peculiar aspect of the general inquiry. But all of them 
together, with all the volumes their devoted scholars have ever 
written, cannot tell the entire story as to " what " any single 
thing really is. Not one of them, however, in the least alters — 
either by increasing or diminishing, by removing or modifying 
— the conviction and the aspect of cognitive experience 
answering to the so-called "substantiality" of things. And 
why should the students of the physical and natural sciences 
be either expected or qualified to accomplish this difficult 
task of metaphysical criticism ? They are precisely as naive 
and uncritical towards this conception as are the most ordinary 
of minds. These sciences will increase our knowledge as to 
what things really exist, and as to what others are the prod- 
ucts of superstition and of fancy ; as to what is the constitution 
of the things which do exist, and what they can do, and how the 
relations between them change, and what careers we may expect 
them to run in their joint course as parts of an all-embracing 
Cosmos. But they are compelled to assume or posit a " that- 
which," a reality comprising manifold "points of attach- 
ment," to which all these properties, transactions, and 
relations may be ascribed. 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 117 

Nor do the merely logical explanations of this same onto- 
logical conception, as ordinarily given, carry us much farther 
into the heart of its meaning. Logic does, to be sure, enable 
us to see on what occasions, and even under what conditions, 
men correctly make use of this category. But in doing this 
friendly office its students are peculiarly liable to mislead us 
by a specious analysis which resolves the " real being," or 
" substance," of things into some other and " purer " thought- 
form. Sometimes — as will appear more clearly when we 
consider the metaphysical conceptions of matter and of 
mind — logical analysis tries to slip over, or cover up, the 
real problem by introducing some very unpretentious but most 
potent and deceptive phrase, — as, for example, the one 
employed so frequently by the positive sciences, namely, 
" that-which." Matter is " that-which," etc. ; or mind is 
" that-which," etc. But our question concerns precisely this, 
— the meaning and outcome of this convenient phrase, 
" that-which." 

Sometimes, however, this category of substance is resolved 
in terms of number, relation, and time ; and then one is told 
that the substance of any thing is a sort of enduring unity 
established among the more obvious regular transactions of 
the thing. Sometimes, again, one is taken nearer the heart 
of the truth and is told that by this conception men express 
their confidence in an " external cause of their sensations." 
Here space, cause, and relation, are so combined as to stand 
together in the room of the category of substance. Now this 
category has not three feet, but one foot. And it is itself 
in origin more simple and obvious than the category of cause. 
To resolve substantiality into mere force is an even nearer hit 
at the fundamental truths of our experience with the real. 

We are assured by Wundt 1 , as a matter of logical analysis, 
that an object-thing is given to our thinking when a complex 
of properties and conditions is found coexisting with a certain 

1 Logik, p. 410. 



US A THEORY OF REALITY 

constancy. And elsewhere 1 we are told by the same writer 
that ''• extra-mental " reality is given to such an object-thing 
on the basis of an assumption which may be expressed as 
follows : *• All perceptions which stand in connection accord 
ing to their time-space form must also be connected together 
in respect of their content." Hence arises the demand so to 
think the actuality that the contradiction which Herbart and 
others hare found in the very conception of substance shall 
be done away. In our effort to meet this demand the mind 
receives help from the conception of a Law regulating the 
Change which things undergo, and thus bringing about in 
them, for thought, the unity which they certainly appear to 
have to the senses. Further reflection upon this conception 
of substance ordinarily results in two false views : (1) that 
substance is the ground of experience, but is not given in 
experience : and (2) that substance, as being, is opposed to 
appearance or phenomena. 2 In both these views, Wundt sees 
a contradiction: for the former regards the category as 
merely hypothetical, and the latter regards the same category 
as the only actual, of which the phenomenal in our experience 
is merely a manifestation. 

In thus clearing the ground for the recognition of the true 
genesis and nature of this conception of substantiality we find 
ourselves in agreement with the positions of Wundt. The 
two views which he regards as false cannot possibly be ac- 
cepted as true, without a total abandonment of the most 
fundamental position which we have elsewhere taken regard- 
ing the nature and validity of cognitive experience, and re- 
garding the nature and application to realities of all the 
categories. With the determination not to be deceived into 
setting up internal contradictions between abstractions and 
mistaking them for contradictions inherent either in our own 
cognitive processes or in the nature of things, we also sym- 

1 System der Philosophie, p. 170. 
2 Ibid., p. 267 f. 



PARTICULAR BEINGS ASD THEIR QUALITIES 119 

pathize most heartily. But it is past at the point where the 
more purely logical treatment :-: this rategory is abandoned for 
its more eririeai and metaphysical treatment, that we find our- 
selves forced into positions of antagonism. For Wnudt be- 
comes uncertain and obscure in his analysis when he attempts 
leal with the •• psychological application of the concept of 
substance.*' Whereas it is in the application of this category 
•to the Self — not. however, as separate from external : hects, 
but as in a living commerce with them — that we discover the 
genesis and r-alize the meaning of the same category as ap- 
plied to things. Moreover, instead of rinding the conception 
of •• substantiality " as held by the physical sciences superior 
in clearness to that of psychology, the exact err: sire stems 
to us true. Still further, the opposition which Wundt sets 
up between the scientific and the religious conception of sub- 
stance seems to us another of those contradictions between 
mere abstractions which a genuine spirit of philosophy seeks 
so diligently to avoid. 

But returning to the earlier point of view, we are impressed 
anew with the inability of logic to solve :ur problem. Fun 
seems that logic can only enumerate certain conditions under 
which the category of substance is implied in all acts of 
knowledge, and then go on to add certain other categories 
with which it is most closely allied in the same activity of 
knowing. Doubtless, -eer u " In certain specified proper- 
ties and conditions of every oVeet is necessary in ir.ler that 
the mind may either perceive, or conceive of. any particular 
object as a real being. — as having the substantial existence 
of a Thing. Doubtless, men ordinarily assume that —hat" is 
connected in their experience with a si/.jnci-:nt constancy is 
also somehow similarly connected in the particular reality. 
And undoubtedly the conception of a law regulating change 
helps the mind in its effort t: think its way into the clear 
light of a full-orbed conception of all that is necessary to the 
actuality of any particular thing. But unless these words 



120 A THEORY OF REALITY 

are to be taken as empty and ineffective abstractions, com- 
forting to the thought of the thinker " of the chair," but quite 
inadequate to do the business of the actual world of real 
things, we must find something more in them than they at first 
suggest. Connection, as such, is bare fact ; it is inert circum- 
stance — whether in thought or among things. What is the 
" that-which " that connects ? Tying together, when done, is 
done ; and from the point of view of the external observer, 
this is the end of the matter. What is it that ties together 
both the different " moments " of the cognitive act, and the 
different qualities and conditions or states of the thing known ? 
And how can the mind make " law regulating change " account 
for the real being of anything, unless it appeals, under cover 
of these words, to a force that shall somehow constitute the 
actual unity of the particular being, by dominating, as it were, 
over the stream of the phenomena and holding them con- 
stantly directed upon some resultant end ? 

John Stuart Mill, 1 after rejecting the definition of the 
" school-logicians " (" A substance ... is self-existent ; in 
speaking about it, we need not put of after its name "), pro- 
poses to define the same conception on the basis of the or- 
dinary twofold distinction of substances into bodies and minds. 
He then proceeds to characterize the former as " the unknown 
external cause " to which we refer our sensations ; and the 
latter he describes as " the sentient subject (in the scholastic 
sense of the term) of all feelings ; that which has or feels 
them." But now that has happened with this writer on logic 
which happens with him and with all his followers in every 
similar case ; a delightful simplicity of language in clearing 
up logically the mystery of existence has only led us from 
twilight shadows into the darkest night. 

The significance of Mill's language is, however, most in- 
structive. Let us consider it ; we are to have here a per- 
fectly " sun-clear " definition, from the logician's point of view, 

1 A System of Logic, 8th edition, Book L, chap, iii., § 6 f . 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 121 

of the conception of substance as applied both to things and 
to minds. But mind is defined as a substance, because it is 
a subject^ in the scholastic or metaphysical sense of that term ; 
it is, indeed, a veritable " that-which ;" and " being sentient" 
is set down as the mind's characteristic self-known qualification. 
Now so far as the substantiality of things is concerned, this is 
the very phrase which the physicists to whom Mill defers are 
ready to adopt ; with them every material thing is, however 
unknowable as to its essence otherwise, a veritable "that- 
which," — a subject of states, in the scholastic sense of the 
term. And in physics it is because of their substantiality 
that bodies are known as a cause of our sensations ; but this 
cause is external (that is to say, " not-ourselves "), and un- 
known, since " being sentient," as minds are, seems not to 
define it well. Now how " being a cause " differs from being 
a " that-which has," etc., we are left in most pitiable condition 
of doubt. Apparently these two phrases amount to the same 
thing ; for the former gives us the conception of substance as 
body, and the latter the conception of substance as mind. 
Neither is it at once apparent why being a subject of states 
that are defined by the word " sentient" should essentially differ 
from being a subject of states that cannot be defined as sentient ; 
— at least so far as " being a subject " at all is concerned. But 
what if one goes on to insist upon having a logical conception 
of what it is " to be a subject," or " to be a cause " (known or 
unknown), or " to be a ' that-which,' " at all ? In answer to 
this metaphysical inquiry, the acute and " sun-clear " defini- 
tion of the logicians appears to have nothing to say. But 
this is the very question that metaphysics wishes to have 
answered. 

It is interesting to notice how Mr. Bradley, in his first 
positive and constructive attempt to state what is necessary 
to reality, 1 fixes upon " self-consistency " as its most essential 
characteristic. Such consistency, however, he thinks, cannot 

1 Appearance and Reality, Book II., chap. xiii. 



122 A THEORY OF REALITY 

belong to " independent realities." It must belong only to 
that Unity of Reality which philosophy seeks to find. This 
self-consistency as a single system is self-existent. But it 
must therefore remain unknown by any other than its self ; 
for " if it is known by another, then forthwith it cannot be 
self-existent since this relation must clearly belong to its 
essence." Here again we have the attempt so often repeated 
in the history of philosophy to form a logical conception of 
Reality resulting in the substitution of an unknowable One 
Being for that concrete fulness of life and meaning which 
the actual system of realities seems to possess for the cogni- 
tive consciousness, for the practical life, and for the religious 
faith, of the multitudes of men. But what interests us at 
this point is the recurrence in all these conceptions of a single 
word. That word is the significant word Self. How shall 
this word be understood ? When the school-logicians defined 
substance as the " self-existent," did they mean to imply the 
doctrine that every object-thing is real only when it is known, 
or thought of, as existent after the analogy of the Self ? To 
be self-existent = to exist as does a self, — at least, in this 
respect, that some point of attachment for the changing rela- 
tions and states is assumed to remain constant amid all 
change. And does Mr. Bradley's " self-consistency " as the 
core of reality mean anything less than such consistency as a 
self may have, and actually does have ? But if this is its 
meaning, how can it be said that the essence of reality must 
remain unknowable by us? 

From our perplexing search after a satisfactory statement 
as to the significance of this category we return with some 
few valuable results. Language, science, logical analysis, all 
alike, imply the confident recognition of something in experi- 
ence, and something in reality, which answers to such abstrac- 
tions as Substance, Being, or Ding-an-sich. Moreover, we 
have been constantly pressed back, by the disappointing 
results of our search, toward the re-examination of the actual 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 123 

facts of cognitive experience. In this experience we seek the 
genesis and the interpretation of our category. Whence 
comes, and what is the meaning of, this X, which lies at the 
heart of every particular thing ? 

So far as the answer to this present inquiry lies in the 
patent facts of human experience it may be given very briefly 
in this place ; for this is an inquiry which has occupied us 
with sufficient detail in several other connections. 1 In brief, 
the genesis of the conception which has gone under the name 
of " substance," " pure being," Ding-cm-sich, is to be found in 
every primary fact of knowledge. Every such fact is, on its 
subjective side, a " self-felt activity " of the knower, a doing 
that is not mere fact of conscious change but is also a con- 
sciousness of doing. Fused with an indefinite variety of sen- 
sation-factors, it is the consciousness that I am alive ; reflected 
upon and made the basis of generalization, it is the knowledge 
that I am not pure passivity or unlimited impressibility, but I 
am a Will. This self-activity, however, would never be " self- 
felt " in such a manner as to reveal in consciousness the very 
core of my being, were it not itself checked and inhibited. 
The experience of being checked and inhibited on every hand 
is the very core of my cognition of every other Thing. My 
self-felt activity is opposed by " that which " is not, and can- 
not be recognized by me, as my doing. The inhibition is, on 
the contrary, necessarily recognized as the doing of that 
which is not me. To that which, not being my self, stands 
opposed to my self-felt activity, I attribute the same essential 
being which I know myself to have. It, too, is a centre of 
activity which stands to my self-felt activity in the reciprocal 
relation of acting and being acted upon. It is in this funda- 
mental fact of an activity, luhich is both self-felt and also Jcnoivn 



1 As a question both for descriptive psychology and for the theory of knowl- 
edge to discuss, see the following works of the author : " Psychology, Descriptive 
and Explanatory," chaps, xi., xiv., xxi., and xxvi. ; " Philosophy of Mind," 
chaps, iii. and iv. ; and " Philosophy of Knowledge," chaps, v.-vii. and xiii. 



124 A THEORY OF REALITY 

to be inhibited, that we discover the root, in experience, from 
ivhich the conception of substance springs forth. 

But this peculiar phase, or aspect, of every cognitive expe- 
rience is never the whole of any particular act or process of 
knowledge. Mere self-felt activity would never amount to a 
knowledge of Self ; mere recognition of the inhibiting of this 
activity, together with the attribution of an analogous activity 
to some external object, would never amount to the knowl- 
edge of a Thing. For on the side of knowledge no example 
of such a complex mental process is ever " mere," or "bare : " 
and on the side of reality, as we have repeatedly seen, no 
particular thing is ever known as mere or bare being. On 
the subjective side, indeed, it is the self-activity involved in 
all knowing which accounts for my positing " that " I am ; 
and it is the activity recognized as centering in the object 
which limits and inhibits my self-activity, that accounts for 
my positing " that " It is. This is because every cognitive 
judgment is a deed of will ; and its issue is the affirmation of 
some reality whose very essence is recognized as will. In a 
word : " Knowledge is born of thinking which has arrived at the 
'pausing place of a judgment — a finished product of synthetic 
activity. " * For neither will alone, nor intellect alone, nor 
feeling alone — if it were not an antiquated and even absurd 
manner of speaking, to apply the word " alone " to the work- 
ing of any of these so-called faculties — could ever result in 
a genuine act of cognitive judgment. As there is no will 
" alone," and no feeling " alone," in any knowing process ; so 
there is no pure being, or thing-in-itself, existent in the world 
of concrete realities. On the other hand, as there is no intel- 
lect which can alone achieve the result of making a cognitive 
judgment, so there are no qualities which, without "being 
posited," can combine into the complex existence of an actual 
Thing. Particular beings are not known to the mind as mere 
bundles of qualities ; for its act of knowledge is not mere 

1 Quoted from " Philosophy of Knowledge," p. 146. 



PARTICULAR BEEN'GS AND THEIR QUALITIES 125 

intellection. Bnt they are not known to the mind as unre- 
lated or pure beings; for the mind cannot will or feel them to 
be at all without discriminating their qualities and relations. 
This synthetic voluntary activity of every cognitive (that is, 
essentially trans-subjective) judgment is the genesis of the cate- 
gory of substance. 

Having once recognized that fact of knowledge, or rather 
that aspect of every fact of knowledge, in which the concep- 
tion of substance lias its genes'. s. nothing further can be said 
about it for its more complete definition. Strictly speaking, 
all the categories are essentially indefinable. They are them- 
selves those fundamental forms of cognition which by their 
different particular combinations and modifications make all 
definition possible. The rather should we say that they are 
themselves, as men think them, the abstractions derived from 
the cognitions of many particular minds and things which 
exist in an indefinite variety of concrete relations and condi- 
tions. This indefinable character belongs especially to the 
category of substance — if we may continue the use for a 
while longer of so obnoxious a word. The reason for its 
especially vague and shifty use. and its peculiarly provoking 
resistance to all attempts at analysis, is now apparent. This 
conception is not given to the mind in the form of any par- 
ticular content of consciousness. Its genesis is the recogni- 
tion of the fact that all knowledge involves self-felt activity, 
inhibited by a non-self into which we project, by a necessary 
and natural analogy, a centre of forth-putting and resisting 
activity. 

In discussing further the validity of the category of sab- 
stance we may now make a certain convenient substitution. 
For this X. in which the common people, the men of science. 
and the adepts in the logical analysis of fundamental concep- 
tions, all alike believe, we may substitute self-activity. By 
this phrase is meant such activity as is an immediate datum 
of every act of perception or of self-consciousness, so far as 



126 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the life of the Self is concerned ; and which is, of necessity, 
in the very act of knowledge also attributed to every external 
object regarded as real. This question now follows : What is 
there in the known constitution of the mind, and what in the 
known constitution of things, which warrants the application 
of this conception to the reality of either, or of both ? 

That the category of substance, as thus described by an 
appeal to what is universal in human cognitive experience, is 
applicable to the reality of the mind, there can be no doubt. 
Indeed, to answer such a question negatively would be to 
affirm and to deny at the same time. The consciousness of 
the plain man, of the psychologist, and of the metaphysician, 
agrees in testimony upon this point. Those critics of Descartes 
who facetiously affirmed that it was just as valid an argument 
to say, " I walk, therefore I am," as to say " I think, therefore 
I am," were unquestionably in the right if "walking" be re- 
garded as a genuine cognitive experience with one's Self. 
When I am, whatever the specific content of consciousness 
may be, so much alive as that I know I am alive, then my 
knowledge admits of no doubt as to the reality of its object. 
Actually, no individual experience with the Self is ever given, 
except as determined content-wise. But every manner of 
content must be experienced as the particular way in which, 
for the present moment, my self-existence is actually deter- 
mined. And this self-existence, however determined in 
particular, must always be known and thought of, as self- 
determined, although in dependence upon the influence of 
other beings. All the language in which men speak of 
themselves, whether ignorant and savage or intelligent and 
cultivated, and whether they speak from the practical, the 
scientific, or the philosophical point of view, illustrates this 
fundamental truth. Language about human self-conscious 
life, and about the concrete realities of human daily living, is 
intelligible in no other way. The answer of every man to the 
question, What do you think ? or, How do you feel ? or, What 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 127 

are you planning ? must always take the form of " positing "' 
the self-activity (though related to and conditioned upon 
some object) of the kt I am." 

No form of reflective thinking upon the nature of mind ever 
succeeds in escaping virtually the same conclusion. Physics 
and psychology, or workaday experience, can explain why I 
think, or feel, or will, this rather than something else. And 
such explanation, either popular or scientific, seems somewhat 
to relieve from mystery our questioning after the " what, " in 
particular, of human experience. But the incomprehensible 
"core" of every individual's being is not to be reached by 
solving such problems as why I see this and not that ; or why 
I hear a sound having the pitch c 1 instead of c 2 . That I see, 
hear, taste, and smell, — that I have any cognitive experience 
at all — this is the unexplained mystery, the irresolvable 
datum of my being. And when the metaphysical analyst is 
invited to approach this problem, he can, of necessity, do 
nothing with it beyond pointing to the same ultimate datum, 
and perhaps making his appeal to self-consciousness in some- 
what clearer terms. 

Every man, in every cognitive experience, when he makes 
himself, as the knower, the object of reflection, recognizes this 
" doing " — self-felt and yet inhibited and determined by an 
object — as the point at which all analysis must stop, and in 
which all experience has its roots. The disputes of psycholo- 
gists and metaphysicians over this point are mere logomachies, 
which by their very character demonstrate the same primary 
and indubitable fact. Striving to express it in both its sub- 
jective and its objective aspects, we may speak of it, from the 
psychological standpoint, as at once active consciousness and 
consciousness of activity. Adding a touch of metaphysics to 
the psychology we may understand the talk about " positing," 
etc., in which German philosophy has abounded. It is this 
central "moment" in our stream of consciousness which 
Teichmuller, for example, explains as a " positing conscious- 



128 A THEORY OF REALITY 

ness " (das setzende Bewusstseyn), whose other side is a 
"consciousness of positing" (das Bewusstseyn der Setzung*). 
Generalizing, and so forming one of those fascinating and 
jet dangerous abstractions in which metaphysics abounds, we 
recognize with Schopenhauer and Hartmann, fact of will, bare 
will, as the solid core of being, — the essential and the actual 
of existence, inseparably united. Interpreting Kant's doctrine 
of Ding-an-sich, both positively and negatively, we get many 
indications of a recognition of the same truth in it. Both the 
intense vitality and also the meagreness of Fichte's philos- 
ophy come from his greatly emphasizing this experience of 
the soul with itself. 

In a word, that form of man's experience, in which are 
found the roots that, when developed by abstract thinking, 
bear the product of this most evanescent and intangible of the 
categories ("Substance," "Pure Being," " Ding-an-sich "), is an 
actualization of the same category in its application to the Self. 
The conception of " being-real " could never orginate without 
the experience of a conscious self-activity inhibited and 
brought to an arrest by other activity. In this experience, 
however, we immediately and indubitably know the Self, the 
knower, as a " being-real." Behind, beneath, above, around, 
this fact of experience, reflective thinking cannot get. It 
defies further analysis, and it needs none. 

If now the valid application of the same category to the 
reality of things be questioned, one can arrive at a satisfac- 
tory answer only by use of the principle of analogy. The 
difference which we wish to signify by the word " analogy " 
is dependent upon the difference between the genesis and de- 
velopment of the knowledge of things and the genesis and 
development of the knowledge of self. It is instructive to 
notice how that clear but not profound thinker, John Stuart 
Mill, emphasized this difference in his twofold definition of 
" substance." The substance of the mind is said to consist 
in its being a " subject " of states, in " the scholastic sense of 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AXD THEIR QUALITIES 129 

the term." It is a veritable but sentient " that-which." But 
the substance of things consists in their being an " unknown 
external cause " to which the mind refers its own sensations. 
It will be shown in due time that the conception answering 
to the words " being a cause " has no meaning that does not 
involve the same experience with ourselves and with things, 
in which the category of substance arises. It is now to be 
noticed, however, that, according to Mill, this " external " 
(or non-self) cause is unknown by the mind ; but the mind 
knows itself as actually the subject of its own states. A 
certain superior immediateness and trustworthiness of knowl- 
edge as to the substantial reality of the mind seems to be 
admitted in all this. And the admission is warranted by the 
facts of experience. 

It remains now to show how all human knowledge as to 
the reality of external things pivots itself upon that central 
act of " positing " which attributes to each object of knowl- 
edge a self-activity, inhibited and determined, however, by 
the self-activity of other objects. When we say " self- 
activity," we mean activity that is analogous to that which 
we feel ourselves to have, as the very core and centre of our 
own being at all. This " attribution" — or " reference," to 
use the term of John Stuart Mill — is not an inference or a 
logical affair, in its more primitive forms of realization. It 
is itself an activity, which enters into the very life of every 
cognitive judgment, in such a way as that, without it no form 
of logical inference could possibly take place. This much is 
true in the claim of Helmholtz and others that a certain kind 
of inference enters into every completed act of perception by 
the senses. The psychology of the whole subject need not 
occupy us anew in this connection ; it is enough to notice 
that the attribution of such a " core " of being belongs in an 
essential way to the cognition of every particular thing. 

How the physical sciences deal with this primitive view of 
all things as both doing and having something done to them, 



130 A THEORY OF REALITY 

after the analogy of the experience of the Self with the objects 
of its perception, will be shown in detail in the proper con- 
nections. The current somewhat shifty conceptions of Force ? 
Energy, Causation, etc., as applied to things on the one hand, 
and of Inertia, Mass, etc., as applied to the same things on 
the other hand, all involve the use of this category. Action 
and reaction, impenetrability and elasticity, etc., involve the 
same conception. At the basis of all the modern refinements 
of the physical sciences lies this same notable and impressive 
experience. In all man's workaday as well as his scientific 
commerce with physical objects, they are known as centres of 
an activity that resists and of an impressibility that receives, 
the activity of other objects, including the self of the knower. 
The " substantiality," the " being real," of every particular 
Thing, consists in just this. Our knowing it as substantial 
and real necessarily involves the creation of this vital analogue. 
In order to illustrate the fidelity to all human experience of 
the propositions just made, it is necessary at present simply 
to consider how men establish for themselves, or for others,, 
the actuality of any particular Thing. In all the simpler, non- 
contested cases, he who is not blind has only to look and 
see. If, however, he will not even look, he cannot see ; and that 
particular visible thing cannot become known as a reality to 
him. But merely looking involves the minimum of self-activity, 
in its inhibition and subsequent, although nearly instantaneous, 
determination by the object which seems to give to the mind 
the cognition of an actual thing. The object is, " content-wise," 
a group of visual symbols into which, because of the excite- 
ment and arrest of attention, I infuse the trans-subjective 
being which every reality must have. So interested am I,. 
as a rule, in reaching the practical results of my cognitive 
activity that the essential nature and significance of the 
activity is not recognized at all. But now let any doubt 
arise : Is that object which I see a really existent Thing ? 
To settle this doubt, I will to look, and to look more atten- 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 131 

tively ; or I will to look again and again. Or, still further, I 
will to put myself into other relations toward the object (as 
of nearer distance or clearer light), in order that it may more 
decisively determine my conscious state. Suppose, however, 
that after using all the resources of perception by sight, the 
doubt as to the reality of my visual object still remains. 
Then I will to bring my other senses into relations of action 
and reaction with the same object. I strive to grasp it 
with my hands, or to embrace it in my arms, or to push 
against it with all my bodily force. When this intensifying 
of the consciousness of doing something is accompanied — 
in some manner pari passu — by an increase in the conscious- 
ness of being resisted by that which I cannot identify as an 
object with myself, then I " know " that this particular object 
is a " real Thing." It has stood the last test of substantiality 
which immediate and primary cognitive experience can apply 
to it. It has met my self-felt activity in a way to compel me 
to recognize it as a centre of resisting activity, after the 
analogy of a true and actual Self. 

If, now, this kind of sensuous evidence fails or gives a con- 
tradictory voice at any step along the line of progress in 
settling, by an appeal to perceptive experience, one's doubts as 
to the real being of the object-thing, one may resort to mere 
argument. Then the judgment which affirms or denies reality 
for the object is made to depend on yet more remote and 
doubtful grounds. By almost imperceptible degrees this 
judgment may be made to fade away into the misty regions 
of mere opinion or conjecture. The Thing thus loses the 
" core " of its reality, because the mind can no longer get its 
answer into the form of a modification of active consciousness 
by an inhibitory or determining activity which centres in that 
particular external object. On " general grounds " of intellect 
one may argue one's way to the derived knowledge of, or 
belief in, the real being of many things which never become 
objects of perceptive experience. For us who see, there are 



132 A THEORY OF REALITY 

many things known as actual to sight, that are not actual to 
touch ; for the blind man none of his tactual and muscular 
realities are things conceivable as real to sight. For in his 
case, things of other men's sight can neither do anything to 
him, nor receive any impressions by activities that make 
themselves felt, as his own, within his consciousness. 

If now the question be raised, What further is it for any 
particular Thing just to be? — that is, to validate its claim 
to actual existence, irrespective of any definite form of exis- 
tence — no answer can possibly be given. The instant any 
being ceases to be experienced as in this commerce of active 
and passive relations, within the system of beings, it forfeits 
its entire appreciable claim to actuality. Nor can we imag- 
ine or think of it as a concrete reality, unless we mentally 
posit this " core " of its being after the analogy of our own 
" self-existence." Moreover, every bit of evidence which 
comes to senses, to imagination, or to intellect, as to " what " 
any particular thing actually is, aggregates itself about this 
central position. Speaking in a figure of speech which, how- 
ever, goes straight to the heart of all human experience with 
physical realities : knowing things involves a positing of them 
as centres of the forthputting and the reception of activity. 
It is not simply this ; for knowing is not bare, indeterminate 
activity ; neither are things mere centres of activity. As 
has already been shown, every concrete reality is an actual 
harmony of all the categories. 

With no other need of systematic metaphysics have its 
students striven more earnestly and yet unsuccessfully than 
with the need of satisfactory principles of differentiation. 
Schopenhauer found these principles in the categories of 
Space, Time, and Causation ; but he was never able to show 
with the least degree of satisfaction, how these three prin- 
ciples may be either derived from, or reconciled with the 
unity of a bare and blind Will. It is much too early in our 
discussion to consider how we propose to secure the satisfac- 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 133 

tion of this need. But without recognition of its existence 
the metaphysician cannot even refer, however vaguely, to 
particular real beings. Whatever the human mind may 
know, or conjecture, about the Unity of Reality, about the 
One, the Absolute, the World-Ground, — or any other term 
philosophers have chosen for this unitary conception, — 
man's first-hand, verifiable, and common knowledge is the 
knowledge of particular existences. For every human mind 
knowledge is, and remains, knowledge of the self and of other 
concrete beings, — their qualities, relations, and transactions. 
From this knowledge of particulars all theory of reality must 
set out ; to this knowledge all theory must be ready to return, 
for its correction and its testing, again and yet again. Real- 
ity may be some sort of a Unity ; and there may be One 
Absolute World-Ground. But there are no known things in 
general, and no known minds in general. 

Now — as will appear throughout the next succeeding chap- 
ters — all the categories afford both differentiating and uni- 
fying conceptions. But the conception derived from that 
" moment " of every cognitive experience which we have 
already coupled with the category of substance, requires a 
brief treatment in this place. We will call it " Quality." 

The ground may be cleared for such brief criticism of this 
conception of Quality as will be necessary to our purpose, by 
a series of negative propositions. These denials all follow 
from the attempt to treat the conception as entitled to a 
place among the categories. And, first, the qualities which 
distinguish particular beings from one another are never in 
fact separable from those beings. Qualities that are not 
" of " things do not really exist ; but neither do qualities 
" off " things, — as it were. Language adopts all manner 
of qualifying terms as though they were themselves realities 
in need of qualification. For example: "Green is one of 
the three fundamental colors, having a central position in 
the chromatic scale, so many vibrations in a second, and 



134 A THEORY OF REALITY 

such intensity, degree of purity, etc." The full significance 
of this way of expressing experience can only appear in the 
light of a further analysis of the categories involved; these 
are relation, number, time, magnitude, force, etc. Scanty 
reflection, however, is needed to make obvious the truth, 
that the quality of greenness, or of being green, is not actu- 
ally separable from the particular beings which it qualifies. 
Subjectively regarded, this quality is really my sensation, or 
yours, or that of some other sentient being. Objectively 
regarded, from the popular point of view, it belongs to the 
object thing, — to the grass, or the glass, or the cloth, I see ; 
and objectively regarded, from the scientific point of view, it 
has been provided with a " subject," to hold and possess it, — 
viz., the wonderful and mysterious being of the ether. 

Neither — to deny again the value of certain metaphysical 
abstractions — can any single quality be regarded as sufficing 
to give the separateness of a reality to any object. In the 
metaphysical theory of Herbart, the different categories were 
regarded as mutually exclusive ; and the solution of the prob- 
lem of being must be found in regarding all concrete realities 
as consisting of innumerable simple essences, each with its 
own single characteristic quality. But we have seen that the 
reality of every particular being depends upon its somehow 
harmonizing the categories ; and we, in fact, do not know and 
never can know any thing as having only one quality. The 
rather should we say that the qualities of every particular 
being seem to be indefinitely numerous ; and that the more 
we know of ourselves and of things, the more does the list of 
known qualifications become enlarged. All our improved 
means, both physical and chemical, for observing the qualities 
of atoms and of masses of matter, whether inorganic or alive, 
demonstrate the truth that the individual existences of the 
world are not differentiated by the possession of single qual- 
ities peculiar to each. And yet the conception of a Unity of 
all things has been confirmed thereby. 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 135 

Neither, again, can the qualities of particular beings be 
considered as statical conditions or rigid states of existence ; 
and so inconsistent with change or growth in these same 
things. It is easy enough, indeed, to discover that the very 
reality of some things depends upon their growth. An actual 
tree, or chick, or man cannot be, without coming to be ; 
the actuality of such beings depends upon growth. But a 
profounder reflection shows this to be really true of all parti- 
cular beings. Their qualities are, indeed, " of " them, and 
may not be taken " off " them ; but they are not like the 
irremovable husk, or shell, of their being, of which the 
kernel or " core " is the substance. Rigid substance + un- 
changing qualities, is not = a real " Thing." 

And, finally, we cannot express to ourselves what is meant 
by the qualities which distinguish any particular being, with- 
out making use of forms of experience from which other 
qualifying conceptions are derived. Qualities of any one 
being always imply relations between two or more beings. 
The very notion of qualities implies a reference to causal 
influences, and causal relations so called. And through the 
doors opened by these categories we are led out into the 
broad universe of being, under the all-embracing sky, by 
every attempt to consider how any single real being can 
possibly be distinguished as such. This leading forth of 
human reflection from the particular Thing — no matter 
what it may be — to the universal Cosmos, of which it is 
" part," rests upon a scientific basis that is growing broader 
and more solid every day. And if the infinite wealth and 
mystery of particular things is being emphasized by science, 
with its increased specialization, the avenues to knowledge 
of that mysterious Infinite in which all particular beings 
have their Being are made more numerous. 

" Raise thou the stone and find me there ; 
Cleave thou the wood and there am I." 



136 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Suppose, however, that a clear and positive answer be 
demanded to the inquiry : What is it really to be the quality 
of any particular being ? We sort things out by their quali- 
ties — either for practical or for scientific purposes, and it is 
by knowing the more permanent or persistently recurrent 
qualities that we learn what to expect from other beings and 
what we may hope to do with them. In a word, by their 
qualities we know " what " things are. But this only tells us 
what use we make of our knowledge of the qualities of par- 
ticular beings ; it does not tell us what qualities really are. 

In seeking for suggestions of the correct and final answer 
to the metaphysical inquiry just raised, we are justified in 
going straight to our most immediate and indubitable knowl- 
edge. I know, to some extent, what some of my own quali- 
ties really are, — at least, if I will not refine overmuch, or try 
to get down below or around behind the evidence. My quali- 
ties, as immediately and indubitably known to me, are the 
modes of the behavior of my Self — both as doing and as 
suffering in my changing relations to other beings. By self- 
knowledge I am " qualified," or " particularized," in an in- 
definite variety of minutely different ways. The varying 
modes of my doing and suffering, of my complex active and 
passive experience, in their peculiar combinations and group- 
ing, serve to distinguish me from all other beings. Others 
may " sort " me out by knowing sufficiently well what these 
modes of behavior are ; they are the important items in the 
conceptual knowledge of my Self. I " sort " myself out in the 
same way. And the actuality corresponding to all this can- 
not be doubted ; because description here is, so far forth, 
only the expression of what is realized in my cognitive 
experience with myself. 

But what meaning must be attached to such a phrase as 
"being the quality of an external thing" ; and, What is it in 
reality to be the quality of any such thing ? The first answer 
which one is tempted to give to these inquiries turns back for 



PARTICULAR BEIXGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 137 

an appeal to the same cognitive self-consciousness. But this, 
of course, can only tell us what are the qualities of that par- 
ticular thing, as related to me. For example, the book which 
lies upon the table, is greenish in color, is so large, is heavy, 
roughish in look and feel, etc. But here physics and psy- 
chology, from their different established points of standing 
may join hands and proclaim that such descriptions of the 
qualities of things are not ontological at all. The qualities 
of things, regarded as c; appearances '' in our stream of con- 
sciousness, are by no means copies of the qualities which 
really belong to the things themselves. And this is as true 
of the so-called primary qualities of things as of those 
qualities which have, of old. been recognized as secondary 
and derived. Thus the physico-chemical sciences have found 
it necessary to devise an entire system of non-sensible quali- 
ties which actually belong to things : and which thus con- 
stitute the conditions or causes of the same things appearing 
to us as endowed with their immediately known qualities. 
That is to say. the physico-chemical reality of things is made. 
in part, the explanation, of the psychical reality of things. 
What things are determines how things shall seem to us. 

Xow the fact just mentioned offers a very instructive, out 
somewhat unsatisfactory answer, to our inquiry as to the 
nature, in reality, of the category of Quality. So far as things 
are concerned, this category seems now to have a twofold 
significance. For the popular consciousness, and indeed for 
every man's consciousness so long as he takes the popular 
point of view, the immediately known qualities of things are 
not their real qualities. Science tells us, however, what 
these real qualities are. And the real qualities are totally 
unlike the immediately known qualities ; but the former 
stand to the latter in the relation of cause to effect. 

The mind is loath to have its metaphysical inquiry as to the 
actual nature of the qualities of things end in this disap- 
pointing way. It continues to ask how we are to think of 



138 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the real qualities, which science reveals to the eye of imagi- 
nation, as related to the things whose qualities they are. And 
no other answer to this inquiry seems possible than the one 
which follows the necessary analogy of our experience with 
ourselves. Things really have qualities; although the con- 
jectures of modern science as to what these qualities really are 
may be as far from a correct copy as are the visual and tactual 
representations of the man who has never listened to the 
marvellous descriptions of modern science. These qualities 
are really nothing other than the actual modes of the doing 
and suffering of the things themselves. But this is to con- 
ceive of things anthropomorphically. Granted ; it is indeed 
to conceive of them — or rather to know them — at least so 
far forth, after the analogy of the self-known Self. 

Any particular being, then, — whether thing or mind, — in 
order to claim a place in reality, must have its own group of 
qualities ; but these qualities are, really, only its character- 
istic ways of acting and reacting in varying relations to other 
particular beings. And these qualities are kept together, in 
our thought and in reality, by some kind of a bond. It was 
this latter conception which was discussed in the earlier 
part of this chapter. 

To know that any particular thing really is, it is not enough 
merely to observe, to discriminate, to think, — so long as 
such forms of experience are regarded as merely passive 
content of consciousness. To posit the existence of things 
as a matter of knowledge, it is necessary to experience a felt 
inhibition of one's self -activity. But to know what any par- 
ticular thing is, one must observe, discriminate, think, the 
various modifications of one's conscious content ; and one 
must attribute these to the thing as its qualities. 

When I ask, What, in reality, are the qualities of that par- 
ticular Thing, considered not as appearances to me but as 
actually belonging to the thing ? only one answer can he 
given. They are the forms of the experience and of the 



PARTICULAR BEINGS AND THEIR QUALITIES 139 

doing of that thing. If I regard them as forms of the " ex- 
perience " of the thing, I take the point of view in which I 
am myself conscious rather of being first acted upon, and 
then of reacting. If I regard them as forms of " doing," I 
take the point of view from which I am conscious of acting 
and then of observing changes in other beings which I inter- 
pret as results of my acting. Both points of view get their 
meaning from knowledge of the Self and from experience 
with its many forms of doing and suffering in the commerce 
of life with Things. 

Other distinctions in qualities — such as those between 
the primary and the secondary, the essential and the acci- 
dental, the permanent and the transitory — need not concern 
us just now. These distinctions are all species under the 
one genus whose nature our metaphysical analysis and criti- 
cism has attempted to disclose. As regards the central prob- 
lem, What is it actually to be the quality of any particular 
being? these distinctions in kinds of qualities are not im- 
portant. We shall find them important subsequently, when 
we raise the question concerning the limit of such qualities 
as must be grouped, or placed in succession in order to main- 
tain the reality of any mind or thing. Meantime, the dis- 
cussions of this chapter may be summed up, in a partial and 
preliminary way, as warranting the following conclusion : 
To be a real Being, with actual qualities, is to be what I 
know my Self to be, — namely, capable of initiating and of 
experiencing changes that are attributable to some subject or 
-" central point of attachment," conceived of after the analogy 
of a conscious Will. 

But such a conclusion as the foregoing is itself not the end, 
but rather the beginning, of yet more careful metaphysical 
analysis and criticism. It leads us at once to discuss the 
forms of knowledge, recognized as forms of reality, that fur- 
nish topics for the next chapter. 



CHAPTER VI 

CHANGE AND BECOMING 

The conclusions of modern science have sufficiently avenged 
any dishonor done in past centuries to the reputation of 
Heraclitus, that first great apostle of the all-inclusive reality 
of Change. " There is nothing abiding, either in the world 
or in its constitution taken as a whole. Not only individual 
things, but also the Universe as a whole, are involved in per- 
petual, ceaseless revolution ; all flows, and nothing abides. 
We cannot say of things that they are ; they become only, 
and pass away in the ever changing play of the movement 
of the universe. That, then, which abides and deserves the 
name of deity, is not a thing, and not substance or matter, 
but motion, the cosmic process, Becoming itself." 1 Yet, with 
Heraclitus, this ceaseless self-transmutation was conceived 
of as though taking place in an " eternally living lire : " " All 
is exchanged for fire, and fire for all, as wares for gold, and 
gold for wares." And over this " dim idea of a World-sub- 
stance " was placed in control a hidden formative harmony, 
a divine directing law (Slkt]}, wisdom considered as an 
efficient force (yvco/jur)'), an imperial and universal reason 
(X0709). 

Thus the thinker who first installed the category of change 
upon the throne of reality, was forced to acknowledge, al- 
though in vague and niggardly fashion, the full truth to be : 
mere change cannot constitute any single actual thing, much 

1 Quoted from Windelband, " A History of Philosophy," Part I., chap, i., § 4. 



CHANGE AND BECOMING 141 

less an orderly world of interacting actualities. Change 
must somehow be constituted a Principle of Becoming, in 
order to be recognized as a conception valid for reality. And 
what was true for this ancient philosopher, with all the mis- 
taking of figures of speech for substance of things which 
characterized his age, is true a fortiori for us now; if we wish 
to " get at " Reality, to know what Being is, we must accept 
change as one, but only one, of the categories. Becoming is 
actualized in the particular, because the universal Principle 
of Becoming belongs to the very nature of Reality. 

That change is actual, both in minds and in things, cannot 
be denied in consistency with the undoubted facts of all hu- 
man experience. But this is quite too mild a way of calling 
attention to the very nature of this experience and to the 
nature of the things in commerce with which such experience 
comes. Indeed, there is so little mystery or doubt about 
this, that much discussion of this category seems superfluous. 
The ontological aspect of the problem may be expressed in 
the following question : How can change in reality be so 
conceived of as that it will serve as an actual all-inclusive 
principle of becoming ? 

That particular changes actually occur is a fact of knowl- 
edge so primal and indubitable that the attempt to deny it 
involves the mind in the most fundamental contradictions. 
We cannot even imagine or think of changeless existence, 
whether mental or physical. A mind that experiences no 
changes is not conceivable as a mind at all, and a totally 
changeless thing is no actual thing. It has just been shown 
that particular beings are made particular by the possession 
of certain groups of qualities peculiar to them. But qual- 
ities are modes of the doing and suffering of these beings ; 
and to do or to suffer in different ways implies, of course, the 
reality of change. But what should now be insisted upon as 
necessary to establish a point of view from which to criticize 
this categorv is, that the full meaning of change can be 



142 A THEORY OF REALITY 

understood only by recognizing that it is a primary and 
indubitable fact of knowledge. Any grasp of consciousness 
which is a full-orbed act of cognition — content-full and self- 
active and involving all the so-called faculties — is itself, in 
its full significance, an actualization, a living experience of 
the category of change. 

Psychology, assuming for the moment the biologist's point 
of view, recognizes the immense significance of sensations of 
change for the origins and growth of all human mental life. 
In the form of sensations of motions, the human animal, like 
all its brothers in the scale below, depends largely upon its 
sensitiveness to change for its survival in the struggle for 
existence. Psycho-physics illustrates abundantly the princi- 
ple that " sensations of becoming " form, in a peculiar way, 
the stimuli of discriminating consciousness, and the indis- 
pensable basis of all clear perception of things. But such 
experience as this does not afford an indubitable knowledge 
of change in reality, whether such change be referred to 
processes in some thing " out there " or to the form of men- 
tal representation " in the mind." Discrimination as a truly 
intellectual activity, and memory in the form of clear recog- 
nition of likenesses and unlikenesses, are further necessary in 
order to establish, within our more primitive and indubitable 
experience, the category of change. Yet again, the mere 
occurrence of like or unlike states in the stream of conscious- 
ness, and the mental discrimination of the likeness or 
unlikeness of these states, does not suffice for the valid 
cognition of an actual change. Development of time-con- 
sciousness, of self-consciousness, and of thing-conscious- 
ness, is necessary to the recognition of the fleeting succession 
of different conscious states, as " 0/" the world of selves and 
of things. For changes are no more capable of an " un- 
attached" existence, of being known mid-air (auf der Luft), 
as it were, than are qualities or states. Minds change and 
things change ; and we know the actuality of their change. 



CHANGE AND BECOMING 148 

But knowledge of minds and of things is never mere sensa- 
tion, or mere discriminating consciousness. Even less is it 
a mere succession of totally unrelated conscious states, — 
even if these conscious states are themselves acts or pro- 
cesses of relating mentally. 

Now, no act of knowledge that has for its object particu- 
lar beings, whether things or minds, in a process of " under- 
going " or " initiating " changes, can be less rich in content 
than is knowledge in general. In other words, change in 
reality cannot be, originally, merely sensed or merely inferred, 
but it must be known ; its metaphysical import, or ontologi- 
cal character, has its roots in cognition, where all the roots 
of our metaphysics lie. All knowledge has, as knowledge, 
this metaphysical import; and it all involves the develop- 
ment of time-consciousness, of self-consciousness, and of 
" thing "-consciousness. 

If now the data of cognitive experience be analyzed, there is 
found amongst them all the fact of a knowledge of actual changes, 
taking place both in ourselves and in other things. This known 
fact of change in particulars is much more primitive than is 
any recognition of a unity of nature, a principle of uniformity, 
or any conception of a " reign of law " over any particular being 
or over that system of beings which constitutes the world as 
known to man. The diversity of one's own experiences, the 
heterogeneity of other things, the contrasts and oppositions of 
objects, are the primary and orginally more important " mo- 
ments " of all man's knowledge. This is the one undeniable 
fact in actuality which lies bedded in all human experience : 
In the form of time-consciousness I knoiu my Self and Things 
as differentiating their being by passing from one condition of 
doing or suffering into another and, in some respects, unlike 
condition. 

That we have correctly stated the fact of knowledge as it 
appears from the subjective point of view, no one can doubt. 
Hence it is customary for psychologists, when struggling 



144 A THEORY OF REALITY 

to free their expressions from all metaphysical implicates, to 
point out that the very nature of the " stream of conscious- 
ness " is that it shall somehow "flow." This stream is — say 
some — a mere succession of states ; although even then it is 
necessary to add, that each " phase," or " wave," or " pulse," 
of consciousness may carry with it something that gives to it, 
and to the preceding phases, waves, or pulses, a sort of unity 
of existence. But, however one tries to express such a principle 
of unity, — and certainly, something of the kind is needed to 
bind together the successive conscious states into a " stream," 
— there can be no doubt, and there is no dispute, from the 
subjective or psychological point of vie w, that without changes 
of conscious states there can come to be no " stream of con- 
sciousness." " Stream " means a flow, a series of changes. 
That every mind appears to itself as changing, and that indeed 
its content is a succession of different " appearances," no ques- 
tion can be raised. 

But the truth that, from the psychological or subjective point 
of view, all facts of cognition are facts of changing content, has 
also its objective or ontological side. Considered from this side, 
this truth becomes an unfailing guaranty of the reality of 
change, both in minds and in things. That I appear to myself 
to change, when this appearance is a fact of knowledge, is not 
distinguishable from the fact that I know myself really to 
change. Or — to state the case more precisely — the distinc- 
tion between appearing to one's self to change and actually 
changing one's self is only a distinction in points of view and 
in form of abstract mental representation ; it is not a distinc- 
tion valid in reality. When I pass from a state of predomi- 
nating pain to one of predominating pleasure, or from the 
perception of a running horse to reflection upon the psycho- 
physical mechanism which is necessary to its running, or 
from the memory of a disagreeable experience in the past to 
the joyful intuition of a great painting, I know that I do 
actually change. Hence cognitive consciousness of change is 



CHANGE AND BECOMING 145 

convertible with cognition of actual change when the Self is 
regarded as the object. For the entire complex experience is 
statable only in this way : I know that I have changed ; I 
was actually in one condition some while since, and I am now 
actually in a different condition. The distinctive feature of 
such a form of consciousness, if it attains the dignity and the 
veraciousness of a genuine act of self-knowledge, is just this : 
I am cognitively conscious of changing, and this " changing " 
is known to be mine. 

In all our use of this category, too, its application to things 
is somewhat differently made from its application to ourselves. 
Hence the metaphysical discussion of change must begin by 
returning to the more modest claim : external things do cer- 
tainly appear to me, and to all men, very frequently and some- 
what indefinitely to change. I cannot, however, immediately 
convert this claim into an indubitable proposition that things 
do, in reality, change ; — at least not if by " Things " I now 
refer to aught conceived of as trans-subjectively existent. 
Such a conversion of claims is made more difficult by the con- 
clusions of modern science as to the nature of physical changes 
in general. For example, the table yonder, with the books 
lying upon it, has certainly the appearance of a tolerably stable 
collection of separate beings, occupying for the present un- 
changing relations in space. Nor do the visual qualities of 
these beings change in so obvious a way that from the prac- 
tical point of view there is any need to take account of their 
changes. To be sure, as clouds pass over the sun the colors 
of the objects are slightly altered; and if one chooses to 
notice this phenomenon, one discovers that the relations, ap- 
parent size, etc., of the objects alter, as one's eyes and body 
are moved in their relation to them. But the important fact 
of cognitive perception is this, — books are lying still on a 
stationary table, a mental picture of a system of unchanging 
beings in statical relations of space. If now the physico- 
chemical sciences are consulted as to what actually causes in 

10 



146 A THEORY OF REALITY 

consciousness such a picture, these sciences have a tale to 
narrate of ceaseless, incredibly rapid, and most mysterious 
changes. The table and the books, considered as trans-sub- 
jectively real and regarded from the scientific points of view, 
are molecules that actually approach and retreat from each 
other ; within these molecules are atoms darting back and 
forth ; perhaps these atoms must be conceived of as them- 
selves infinitely varied systems of change, like wreaths of smoke 
or of gas ; and within each reality, and between all the 
elements of them all, and between them all and me, and within 
my eyes, nerve-tracts, and brain, vibrates unceasingly the 
awfully mysterious being of the omnipresent and god-like 
ether. 

No wonder that the man of so-called " common-sense " re- 
coils with some incredulity from that picture of the changes 
in things which the modern sciences constantly affirm to be the 
actual state of the case, as well as to afford the real causes of 
the changing appearances of things to him and to other men. 

In order to understand our experience we must return to 
the sure ground of standing in the facts of knowledge. From 
them our path for the exploration of the category of change 
— its trans-subjective applicability and validity — must be 
traced anew. These facts, so far as they concern the true 
being of the world, are primarily perceptions by the senses. 
And if for the moment one is willing to set aside the very 
doubtful distinction sometimes made between things as 
known to us and " things-in-themselves," some progress may 
quickly be made toward a tenable solution of the problem 
before us. For it has already been shown (p. 46 f.) that to 
regard the former as mere appearances and the latter as the 
only true realities is to deny the most fundamental implica- 
tions of all human cognitive experience. 

In the knowledge of things by human perception they are 
all known to be subjects of certain modifications peculiar to 
them, each one. In other words, the mind perceives changes- 



CHANGE AND BECOMING 147 

in things as well as in its self : but the character and limita- 
tions of the application of the conception of change are not 
precisely identical for both things and minds. Some of the 
apparent changes in things are necessarily attributed to 
changes in the mental points of view ; or even to actual 
changes going: on in the mind. Some other changes, however, 
we are irresistibly convinced. — so long, at least, as the point 
of view of perceptive cognition is steadfastly maintained, — 
belong to the things themselves and occur in reality. Such 
are especially all alterations of the appearances of things in 
space. There are. indeed, illusions of motion not a few; 
and a man does not need to be a modern expert in psychol- 
ogy to know this. Men have always known and reckoned 
upon such experiences successfully in a practical way. But 
whatever space may really be. and whatever motion in space 
may actually mean, there can be no doubt that a knowledge 
of actual changes of place by the things constitutes an insep- 
arable part of men's knowledge of what things really are and 
actually do. 

To naive perception things actually change not only their 
size and shape, by accretion or growth or separation, but also 
their color, taste, and other sensuous properties. All the 
advances of the physico-chemical sciences, however, tend in 
the direction of reducing all changes in the sensuous prop- 
erties of things to terms similar to those to which changes in 
place, size, and shape may obviously be reduced ; all perceived 
changes of the qualities of things, that is to say, are really 
appearances due to actual motions of things. These motions 
may be either in the gross masses of things, or in the mole- 
cules and atoms composing them : or they may be motions in 
some medium, or vehicle, which connects human organs of 
sense with external things, such as olfactory effluvia, lumin- 
iferous ether, etc. It must be admitted that all the re- 
sources of these sciences, aided by the two arms of mathe- 
matics and improved instrumentation, have not yet succeeded 



148 A THEORY OF REALITY 

in making the reduction complete. Certain occult or manifest 
qualities and changes in things have to be recognized in fact, 
for which we can as yet devise no formulas — even imaginary 
— in terms of motion. Nevertheless, the effort, the tendency, 
and the triumphs, of modern physical theory are unmistakable 
here. Things can move — either as masses in space, or intra- 
molecularly, or perhaps " intra-atomically ; " but these are all 
the changes of which, quoad "things," they are capable. This 
kind of change, however, they actually do both undergo them- 
selves and cause in one another ; and, indeed, they are always 
ceaselessly changing in this way, whether the dull and slow 
senses of man can discern the truth of fact or not. 

What is necessary to acknowledge, then, as known to science, 
may be stated in the following way : The doubt or denial of 
all actual changes in external things cannot be held in con- 
sistency with the facts and legitimate inferences of man's ex- 
perience with things. Agnosticism, whether positive or negative, 
concerning the trans-subjective validity of the category of change 
undermines the entire fabric of human knowledge. It is not 
simply a permissible postulate to hold that change in my 
perceptive consciousness is explicable because change is actual 
in the world of things. It is rather the necessary presupposi- 
tion, the inescapable metaphysical import, of all perceptive 
and scientific knowledge of things, that they actually do 
change. To state the fact of knowledge in an abstract but 
thoroughly justifiable way : The very terms of the knowable- 
ness of things include the implicate — things do really change. 
Process and Becoming in the realities of human experience 
cannot be reduced to merely subjective affairs, or to charac- 
teristics of the existence of the Ego as a flowing " stream of 
consciousness," without undermining the entire structure of 
that knowledge of the external world which the race has 
builded through many thousands of years. If this were the 
place for such an excursus, it could also be shown that all the 
social, and even the ethical and religious, postulates, convic- 



CHAXGE AND BECOMING 149 

tions, and most firmly established cognitions of men, are alike 
pledged to guarantee the actuality of changes going on in 
external things. 

The growth of human knowledge shows that both selves 
and things are somehow and to some extent at least, con- 
nected together in a unitary system of interdependent changes. 
That the changes which go on in any one thing, or group or 
system of things, are never entirely independent of changes 
going on elsewhere, is true both as a sort of necessary presup- 
position and as an indisputable conclusion of scientific inves- 
tigation. Only in case something like this be conceived of 
as actual, can the name of science be vindicated for any body 
of propositions. Only as man's growing knowledge confirms 
and perpetually illustrates this conception, can scientific 
development take place. Here the omnipresent category of 
relation thrusts itself forcibly upon our attention. Things 
and minds do not change in a wholly isolated way. And even 
when some one thing or mind seems to take upon itself the 
responsibility, so to speak, of initiating any change in itself, 
such change eventuates in a change in some other thing or 
mind. 

Without at present raising again the issue between a 
monistic or a dualistic, theory of mind and body, and the 
theory of psycho-physical parallelism, we need only call 
attention to the universally accepted facts involved in experi- 
ence : somehow changes in us and changes in things are 
actually related. In certain forms of experience the convic- 
tion is universally accepted, and must therefore be critically 
accounted for. that the actual changes recognized in the self 
and those changes perceived or inferred in external things 
run through such an order as that the one is in a fairly 
faithful correlation with the other. For example : " I saw 
the greyhound run from the hedge beside the road to the tree 
upon the hillside." This " I saw." with its object, was 
actually a series of conscious states of perception that have 



150 A THEORY OF REALITY 

somehow come to have the unity of a continuous mental 
process. But the "running greyhound" is a real thing 
changing its actual position in space. And yet the very 
meaning of the terms in which the complex knowledge is 
declared implies, as beyond doubt, some sort of dependence of 
the former on the latter. While the perceptions changed, P, 
P l5 P 2 , P 3 , P4, etc., the place of the greyhound changed, as (7, 
#!, 6t 2 , 6? 3 , 6r 4 , etc. In details I may easily be mistaken ; the 
apparent position indicated by Pi never corresponds with the 
actual position of Gri : and yet the entire mental series of P, 
P 1? etc., is a "fairly faithful" representation of the trans-sub- 
jective series, 6r, Cf- l9 etc. 

Further discussion of much that is involved in what has just 
been said must be left for other connections. It is enough now 
to notice that in knowing the actuality of changes in both 
things and minds, both kinds of change are known as somehow 
belonging to a single system of changes. To remove things 
from this system ivould render them unknowable and even in- 
conceivable as things ; to remove our self from this system would 
he to render this self incapable of the knowledge of things. 

When such a word as " system " is introduced into a meta- 
physical discussion, the thought has already passed beyond 
the conception of mere change, or change considered as un- 
limited — change that is conceived of only in terms of change. 
And the truth is that mere change, or random change, in our- 
selves or in things, is not what our true experience reports 
to us ; such change, did it exist, would be essentially unknow- 
able. To speak of a " Thing " changing, or of a " Self " 
changing, is already to limit the character of the change. For 
the point of contemplation to which the mind is now compelled 
to advance for the further reflective treatment of this category 
discloses the following truth : nothing real, whether minds or 
things, can be, unless some limitation is put upon the changes 
which it undergoes. Both knower and object-thing known 
at once lose claim to be the same realities if they are carried 



CHANGE AND BECOMING 151 

by the "world-flow" beyond a certain limit of change. Some 
principle of becoming must, then, be acknowledged as in con- 
trol of all the modifications which all real particular beings 
actually undergo. In other words, change is indeed a nec- 
essary qualification of reality, and an indubitable fact bound 
up in the process of knowledge ; but mere change is not only 
logically inconsistent with the conception of a thing or of a 
mind ; it is also inconsistent with the reality of any known thing 
or self-conscious mind. Here, again, then, we take our stand on 
the incontestable facts of cognitive experience and, in defiance 
of all manner of sophistic or other agnostic abstractions, affirm 
that this regulation, or control, of change must be ontological . 
Metaphysics, whether naive and so fitted for practical life and 
for the pursuit of the physical sciences, or critical and system- 
atic, is compelled to recognize principles of becoming as 
applied to the world of concrete realities. 

In the conclusion just reached we have spoken of " prin- 
ciples" of becoming rather than of any one Principle of Becom- 
ing. This has been partly due to the wish to cling as closely 
as possible to the actual facts of men's common life of knowl- 
edge; and partly to the belief that all the other metaphysical 
problems are involved, in a vital way, in any effort to unify 
the different actual changes of things and minds. It must be 
admitted therefore, for the present, that the growth of knowl- 
edge allows of, and seems at first-hand analysis to require, an 
almost indefinite variety of real principles of becoming. From 
the practical points of view, and for man's workaday uses the 
amount of changes consistent with the continued reality of any 
single thing is determined in a vague and shifting manner ; 
but what chiefly determines is the particular point of view, 
with its practical utility. For example, water frozen is no 
longer water, but has been changed into ice : and yet it is 
after all the same clear water which makes the good ice. 
Water heated changes into vapor : and heated more, it is no 
longer water but has become steam. This same water, when 



152 A THEORY OF REALITY 

subjected to certain conditions in the chemical laboratory, 
changes into oxygen and hydrogen gases — things so unlike 
their original that the change seems incredible to naive percep- 
tion. Oxygen and hydrogen gases are not the same things as 
the water from which they are derived, the water is no longer 
really existent ; but these particular volumes of gas have just 
come actually to be. Liquefied air is not at all like air ; and 
yet it is called air — only liquefied. But that the water has 
changed into gases seems improperly to express the transac- 
tion in reality. The air has changed its form and become liquid. 
The water has lost its reality by the process of decomposition ; 
but two other things have been brought into being by the same 
process. Even the man of science, with his mind so firmly 
fortified against all claims for an existence ah initio, can 
scarcely avoid talking in this vague and uncertain way. 

It is not necessary to illustrate the truth for which we are 
contending with any of the thousands of examples which 
might readily be found. Consider the amazing transformations 
through which some animals and plants go ; so that recogni- 
tion of them as in any sense the same beings in the different 
stages of their transformations, is difficult or impossible even 
for the most trained among experts. Consider the amazing 
transformations through which every plant and every animal 
necessarily goes — transformations that are not considered 
"amazing" only because they are too familiar to shock the 
unreflecting mind. For example, we are now being told, as 
an interesting new discovery in botany, that " the cycle of 
vegetation of the truffle is completed by an alteration of states, 
each having to do with a different substratum or host. This 
alteration is very similar to that which takes place in the case 
of Ascidiums which, as it is known, develop on a different 
species of plant from that which bears them during the earliest 
period of their existence." And what shall we say of the 
changes which go on in the newly impregnated egg, as 
modern microscopy and physiological chemistry describe these 



. CHANGE AND BECOMING 153 

changes ? Here is a Thing that is, and is to be, in some sort 
the same throughout ; but what it will be, does not appear as 
yet, even under the highest powers of the magnifying glass or 
the most delicate of chemical tests. But as we look on, and 
under our eyes, it proceeds to define itself more and more by 
going through most astonishing and wholly unpredictable 
changes. Under the influence of interior forces it proceeds to 
maintain its claim to be a particular real being by placing all 
its changes under the limitation or control of some peculiar 
principles of becoming. 

If now our science tries to account for any such succession 
of phenomena by ascribing it all to the peculiar attributes 
of the molecules which compose for example the substance 
of the living cell, it only pushes the problem further back. 
For, in the first place, it can only describe the molecules and 
atoms themselves as real things, whose changes are some- 
how limited and controlled by principles belonging to each, — 
molecules of albuminoids, carbohydrates, etc., or atoms of 
carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. And, in the second 
place, the principles of becoming, which account for observed 
changes in the relations of the atoms, or in the constitution 
of the molecules, do not in themselves suffice to serve as prin- 
ciples of that becoming which the entire history of the 
plant or animal displays. Every atom is some sort of a 
unity equipped by chemical theory with its peculiar list of 
principles that regulate what it can really do and be ; and so 
is every species of molecule compounded of the atoms ; and 
so is every individual real thing composed of an infinity of 
molecules. 

It is undoubtedly things which grow that furnish most 
striking illustrations of the need of principles of becoming. 
But the same need exists for things which do not grow ; for 
all things, indeed, that change ; and so for all things, since 
all things change. When something to serve as a nucleus is 
cast into the menstruum where certain molecules of a. 



152 A THEORY OF REALITY 

subjected to certain conditions in the chemical laboratory, 
changes into oxygen and hydrogen gases — things so unlike 
their original that the change seems incredible to naive percep- 
tion. Oxygen and hydrogen gases are not the same things as 
the water from which they are derived, the water is no longer 
really existent ; but these particular volumes of gas have just 
come actually to be. Liquefied air is not at all like air ; and 
yet it is called air — only liquefied. But that the water has 
changed into gases seems improperly to express the transac- 
tion in reality. The air has changed its form and become liquid. 
The water has lost its reality by the process of decomposition ; 
but two other things have been brought into being by the same 
process. Even the man of science, with his mind so firmly 
fortified against all claims for an existence ab initio, can 
scarcely avoid talking in this vague and uncertain way. 

It is not necessary to illustrate the truth for which we are 
contending with any of the thousands of examples which 
might readily be found. Consider the amazing transformations 
through which some animals and plants go ; so that recogni- 
tion of them as in any sense the same beings in the different 
stages of their transformations, is difficult or impossible even 
for the most trained among experts. Consider the amazing 
transformations through which every plant and every animal 
necessarily goes — transformations that are not considered 
"amazing" only because they are too familiar to shock the 
unreflecting mind. For example, we are now being told, as 
an interesting new discovery in botany, that " the cycle of 
vegetation of the truffle is completed by an alteration of states, 
each having to do with a different substratum or host. This 
alteration is very similar to that which takes place in the case 
of Ascidiums which, as it is known, develop on a different 
species of plant from that which bears them during the earliest 
period of their existence." And what shall we say of the 
changes which go on in the newly impregnated egg, as 
modern microscopy and physiological chemistry describe these 



. CHANGE AND BECOMING 153 

changes ? Here is a Thing that is, and is to be, in some sort 
the same throughout ; but what it will be, does not appear as 
yet, even under the highest powers of the magnifying glass or 
the most delicate of chemical tests. But as we look on, and 
under our eyes, it proceeds to define itself more and more by 
going through most astonishing and wholly unpredictable 
changes. Under the influence of interior forces it proceeds to 
maintain its claim to be a particular real being by placing all 
its changes under the limitation or control of some peculiar 
principles of becoming. 

If now our science tries to account for any such succession 
of phenomena by ascribing it all to the peculiar attributes 
of the molecules which compose for example the substance 
of the living cell, it only pushes the problem further back. 
For, in the first place, it can only describe the molecules and 
atoms themselves as real things, whose changes are some- 
how limited and controlled by principles belonging to each, — 
molecules of albuminoids, carbohydrates, etc., or atoms of 
carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen. And, in the second 
place, the principles of becoming, which account for observed 
changes in the relations of the atoms, or in the constitution 
of the molecules, do not in themselves suffice to serve as prin- 
ciples of that becoming which the entire history of the 
plant or animal displays. Every atom is some sort of a 
unity equipped by chemical theory with its peculiar list of 
principles that regulate what it can really do and be ; and so 
is every species of molecule compounded of the atoms ; and 
so is every individual real thing composed of an infinity of 
molecules. 

It is undoubtedly things which grow that furnish most 
striking illustrations of the need of principles of becoming. 
But the same need exists for things which do not grow ; for 
all things, indeed, that change ; and so for all things, since 
all things change. When something to serve as a nucleus is 
cast into the menstruum where certain molecules of a 



154 A THEORY OF REALITY 

definite chemical construction are in solution, then a crystal 
whose character is determined by the construction of the 
molecules begins to form itself. In fact, the molecules rally, 
run together and range themselves in appropriate ideal man- 
ner ; and a wholly new being is formed. This striking series 
of changes is separated from those that characterize the 
growth of a living cell by certain sharp lines of demarkation 
which modern science only emphasizes, but cannot as yet see 
the possibility of breaking down. Yet the crystal, like the 
full-grown animal or plant, is far from being the resultant 
of unlimited or uncontrolled changes. On the contrary, it 
acquires and maintains its existence as a " crystal " — as that 
particular being which it is — under a stricter limitation and 
control than that which presides over the living cell. Its 
more specific characteristics, as a crystal of a particular kind, 
require it constantly to subject its changes to the appropriate 
principles regulative of its specific form of being. 

In a word, however the points of view and the ends desired 
may change, the metaphysical truth enforced by the facts 
remains the same. Men choose the points of view from which 
to contemplate the alterations and the identities of particular 
things, with various theoretical or practical ends to serve. 
But changes of things in reality cannot be known or conceived of, 
us mere mechanism of change; they are always known and 
conceived of as falling under some principle that shall serve 
■as a living and associating unity. Principles of becoming 
must limit and control all actual becoming. Only thus 
can things have their different states and conditions unified 
enough to validate their claim to a place in the world of 
reality. 

What kind of principles accordingly will serve to confine 
the changes of things within the limitations necessary to their 
being known as realities ? And, since every such principle 
niust be ontological : What kind of a " living and associating 
unity'' must particular real beings possess in order that, 



CHANGE AND BECOMING 155 

while actually changing, they may somehow continue real ? 
Now, all human language and human thinking show clearly 
enough how these questions must be answered, if answered 
at all. And the refusal to accept this answer throws the 
mind back into that agnostic position from which the con- 
sistent application of any of the categories to reality becomes 
impossible. " The real identity {or continued being) of any 
particular being consists in this, that its self-activity manifests it- 
self, in all its different relations to other beings as conforming 
to an immanent idea." 1 But the conception of " conforming 
to an immanent idea" is derived from our familiar experi- 
ence with ourselves. It is as actually thus conforming to 
immanent ideas that we know ourselves to exist, and to 
remain somehow the same, in spite of all changes of states 
and conditions which we either undertake or undergo. And 
when we know, or conceive of, other selves as actually con- 
tinuing in existence, although being subject to change, the 
same principle is applied to them. Finally, all men's cogni- 
tions and conceptions of external things illustrate the same 
truth. Things are known or conceived of as remaining some- 
how self -identical, while being subjects of more or less im- 
portant changes, after the analogy of this identity which be- 
longs to the self. 'We project into things "that which" secures 
their existence from succumbing to the constant process of 
change. Like the self, they remain constant, in their doing 
and suffering, to immanent ideas. As having self-activity — 
the mysterious " core " of the being of things — and as 
being related to other beings in a system of things, the 
various forms of their doing and suffering come under the 
control of ideal principles. And to be actually " under the 
control of ideal principles," as distinguished from being a 
mere, unintelligible and unmeaning mechanism of change, 
is to do and to suffer, in this respect as we know ourselves to 

1 Compare " Philosophy of Mind," chaps, iv. and v. ; and " Philosophy of 
Knowledge," chaps, vii. and ix. 



156 A THEORY OF REALITY 

do and to suffer. The ontological Principle of all Becoming 
must be an ideal principle ; and as an ideal principle, it 
requires so far forth that things should be known as bearing 
an essential likeness to the Self. 

Now, that I do actually conform to immanent ideas is an 
indisputable truth of immediate experience. This is, in many 
instances, the central truth of self-consciousness; in all 
instances of self-cognition it is a truth implicate in the very 
process of self-cognition. Knowledge of one's self, as actually 
changing or as having changed, always implies the recognition 
that the actual changes have been limited and controlled by 
some ideal principle. If experience be analyzed, it is found 
that, although self-knowledge cannot be resolved into what 
Lotze calls " self-feeling " and somewhat injudiciously over- 
estimates in his doctrine of being, it cannot be experienced 
without such self-feeling. Neither can self-knowledge exist 
without that self-felt activity which has been found to be im- 
portant as a sort of root for the growth of the metaphysical 
conception of substance, or pure being. But neither can the 
act of self-knowledge be completed without recognitive 
memory and that reflective thinking which issues in the 
cognitive judgment : I, that was, and am, and have been, am 
the subject of all the changes. This is to affirm that all the 
changes have been conformable to the one idea of my " Self ; " 
and therefore not merely felt, and willed, but also known as 
mine. This conformity is not merely conceptual, a bare 
agreement with an abstract idea ; for the Self which realizes 
and knows it is not a mere abstract being, a bare idea of a 
self. 

Suppose, now, that any particular change occurs in the 
" stream of consciousness " which, on well-known psychological 
principles, must be attributed to the Self and not to some 
Thing, but which only partially or with difficulty conforms to 
the ideal principles recognized as belonging to the self. Such 
a change is recognized as more or less "unlike" me, al- 



CHANGE AND BECOMING 157 

though it is •• in " me : it seems ; - queer " that I should do in 
this way or should suffer such feelings as this. Still, within 
certain not easily assignable limits, one may swerve in one's 
conscious changes from the idea which defines one's own 
being and yet remain an actually existing and self-identical 
mind. Even the unfortunate victim of progressive paralysis 
can still remember some things belonging to his past, can 
still recognize some of the present objects of his mental re- 
presentation as belonging to his peculiar ''personal" experi- 
ence, can still exhibit to himself and to others certain well- 
known traits. He is still in a measure the same real mind 
that he once was ; and yet, how changed ! But suppose that 
absolutely all conformity recognizable by himself or by other 
minds to the idea of the former self has ceased ; then this 
particular mind has so changed as, for the time at least, to 
have vanished from reality ; it is no longer the subject of 
changes, for it has ceased to be as becomes the actuality 
of a mind. 1 

Doubtless, we seem to be talking in figures of speech when 
we apply similar terms to physical things. Granted, too, that 
we are really talking in figures of speech. The fact remains, 
nevertheless, that all which we know, or can mean, about the 
identity of things amidst their changes must be constructed 
after the analogy of our experience with our own changing and 
yet self-identical selves. How physics and chemistry work 
out the details of the general principle, and how they sum- 
mon to their efficient help the categories of Force, Quantity, 
Number, etc.. will be briefly considered elsewhere. Confining 
ourselves at present to the discussion in hand, we can only 
repeat what was formerly said from another point of view : 
" Things have in reality no sameness, no identical and per- 
manent being, except as they conform to the terms of mental 
existence, and manifest the immanency and control of that 

1 For further discussion of this problem, see the author's "Philosophy of Mind," 
chap. v. : " The Consciousness of Identity and so-called Double Consciousness." 



158 A THEORY OF REALITY 

which is inconceivable unless it be stated in terms of mind. 
In vain do physics, chemistry, and biology strive to escape 
some such conclusion as this. The terms they employ to 
set forth what in the physical world, amid all changes, 
remains really the same, are absolutely meaningless unless 
all material reality is admitted to be the expression and the 
subject of what is ideal." 

Mr. Bradley is not without good grounds in affirming that 
a certain " self-consistency " is the primal principle of all 
the real. For if now we attempt to apply the conception of 
change or becoming to the entire world of being, the same 
line of reflective thinking must be followed to its legitimate 
end. A World, a Cosmos, no matter how incomplete or even 
inchoate, and no matter how little rational from the higher 
ethical and aesthetical points of view, cannot be an unrelated 
and unsystematized series, or network, of changes. Some prin- 
ciple of becoming must be recognized, just so far in space 
and in time as such changes are known or even conceived of, 
as belonging to one world. And wherever known or con- 
ceived of, this principle bears the stamp of its origin and of 
its original application. Its extension to the system of physi- 
cal change in the world of things is valid only if the anal- 
ogy between this world as a totality and the totality of changes 
we know as belonging to the Self is valid. For the appli- 
cation is itself the projection of the immanent presence of an 
Ideal Principle into the heterogeneity of physical changes, as a 
living and associating force. 

It was the poetical recognition of this truth which led 
Shelley to write : — 

" The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
Heaven's light forever shines ; earth's shadows fly ; 
Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
Stains the white radiance of Eternity." 

But Browning's expression of the thought is more profound, 
although at the same time his figure of speech is more confused. 



CHANGE AND BECOMING 159 

" For as some imperial chord subsists, 
Steadily underlies the accidental mists 
Of music springing thence, that run their mazy race 
Around, and sink, absorbed, back to the triad base ; 
So, out of that one word, each variant rose and fell, 
And left the same 'All 's change, but permanence as well.' " 

But in order to discuss the possibility of applying the cate- 
gory of Change to the World- Ground, or to the entire system 
of things and to its career of changes considered as falling 
under some conception of development, there is much work 
of a more fundamental and humble character yet to do. 
Should we finally attempt such high themes, however, it will 
be well to remember the very limited set of conclusions which 
this chapter has enabled us to reach. 



CHAPTER VII 

KELATION 

It is a significant saying whose origin has been attributed 
to different authors, and which expresses a truth that may 
well enough have occurred in an original way to different 
minds : " Relation is the mother of all the categories." From 
the subjective point of view relations are what we find as 
ultimate residua, so to speak, of all our thinking ; and from 
the objective point of view, they are the manifold expressions 
which cognitive experience gives to the fundamental and ulti- 
mate fact, that all concrete realities — so far as known or know- 
able to man — are united into some kind of a system. If that 
which unites things is solely the thinking faculty of man, 
then all relations whatever are subjective. But if the bond 
actually exist, in various ways, between concrete real beings, 
such relations cannot be the result solely of the synthetic 
activity of the human thinking faculty. 

It is the temptation of all metaphysical discussion of this 
category to settle its problem quickly, and to attain a com- 
fortable position of logical consistency, by leaping to either 
one of two extreme points of view. Suppose it to be concluded 
that all relations are merely subjective ; then it is possible 
to see how an independent active and synthetic force like 
the human mind should create a sort of unity out of various 
appearances to itself, in accordance with the terms set into 
its own constitution. Trans-subjective or actual relations 
between real things are thus abolished ; and the only reality 
that remains as the " correlate " of this psychic conscious 



RELATION 161 

force is the One unrelated mystical Absolute. But such 
" correlation " is itself surely a relation that must be main- 
tained as existing in reality. It is in fact an entire system of 
concrete and definite relations. And thus the category of 
relation produces destructive contradictions within the very 
Being of the Absolute. On the other hand, if we deny that 
any of our subjective relations belong to the world of true 
reality, the successive cognitions of man remain mere " ap- 
pearances," or mists, hung mid-air over a machine-like system 
of physical interactions ; and no possible way can be devised 
of verifying any truth as arising between the subject and real 
things. For " truth "as obtainable by the mind of man requires 
a complicated system of actual relations betiveen a thinking sub- 
ject and the transactions going on amongst beings other than this 
subject. The reality of relations is, therefore, a metaphysical 
problem whose solution determines one's entire attitude 
toward the nature of reality. And this solution cannot be 
safely reached by a leap to either extreme position. 

We follow a suggestive method of approaching the problem 
offered by the category of relation, if we consider how great 
is the variety of forms which this category may assume. In 
the popular way of regarding the truth, there is only one 
Space, one Time, and one essentially identical conception of 
Force, — however manifold the " manifestations " of this 
force may be. Of Qualities, Changes and Numbers, of Forms 
and Laws, a quite indefinite variety appears necessary in 
order to account for the facts of our more primary experiences 
with things. Of Relations, however, there certainly seem to 
be a considerable number of species which do not admit of 
easy reduction under a single all-inclusive genus. And yet 
the number of possible relations is by no means so essentially 
unlimited as is the number of qualities or changes which 
things are capable of developing. Considered as a principle 
of unifying, therefore, this category must be given a place 
somewhere midway between the two classes of categories with 

11 



162 A THEORY OF REALITY 

which it has just been compared. Or, to put the case in 
another way: The correspondence of all spaces, times, and 
forces, to the conceptions of one space, one time, and one 
force, unifies the different concrete experiences which men 
have with an indefinite variety of things and of minds ; and 
thus they all become known as belonging to the one World 
which includes them all as particular beings in It. But the 
indefinitely varied qualities, changes, and numbers, of things 
serve to break this unity up again into an indefinite variety 
of particulars ; although quality, change, and number, are also 
unifying principles. Here, however, the mediating influence 
of relations becomes manifest. Space, time, and force actually 
unify, because particular beings are known as related in 
space, in time, and under the various forms or manifestations 
of force. On the other hand, the particular beings of the 
world are bound together under higher and yet higher forms 
of unity as they are shown to be related, in respect of their 
qualities, changes, and forms, and their subjection to general 
formulas called " laws." 

That some such view of the mediating and unifying office of 
the thought of relation is not fanciful, will appear more clearly 
when it is considered how actual relations are established by 
the growth of human knowledge ; and also what it is to be 
related in reality. But the nature of this category may per- 
haps be shown in yet more impressive way by calling atten- 
tion to the part it plays in those dramatic schemes for a rigid 
classification which result from the vain attempt to treat 
metaphysics as a matter of formal logic. For example, the 
author of one such attempt 2 having got himself ready " to 
complete the Formal edifice which we have been slowly build- 
ing up," divides all the categories into " a posteriori elements, 
of Receptivity " and " a priori Dialectic moments of Percip- 
ience." The former are then subdivided into " Attuits " and 

1 See a book called " Metaphysica Nova et Vetusta, A Return to Dualism, by 
Scotus Novanticus," Sixth Part, The Categories. 



RELATION 163 

" Predicaments " ; and the latter into " Pure " and " Deriva- 
tive." But the interesting thing for our present purpose to 
notice is, that four of the eleven " attuits " are different 
kinds of relation (i.e., of space, time, quantity, quality) ; and 
all the other seven are inexpressible without introducing the 
conception of relation. Again, all the so-called " predica- 
ments " repeat the same classification from an altered point 
of view ; while each of the " ct priori Dialectic moments of 
Percipience " — except the " Absoluto-Infinite " and " Being " 
as Identity — is most obviously neither conceivable nor work- 
able without aid from the conception of relation. And as to 
the two exceptions, we might easily undertake to show that 
they, too, need the same aid if they are not to remain barren, 
useless, and merely formal abstractions. 

But a greater master than the author of the " Metaphysica 
Nova et Yetusta " has failed to appreciate the full significance 
of the ontological truth which is admitted when Relation is- 
declared to be " the mother of all the categories." We refer,. 
of course, to Kant, the founder of modern metaphysical dialec- 
tic and criticism. Who has emphasized more than did he,, 
the truth that all scientific cognition depends upon the forms 
of the functioning of the intellect, or relating faculty, in its. 
different kinds of judgments ? In fact, the conclusions of the- 
Transcendental ^Esthetic as to Space and Time, as well as the 
theory of the Transcendental Dialectic or " logic of illusion " 
(eine Logik des Scheins*), depend upon the trustworthiness of 
man's relating faculty in its dealing with the data of objective 
cognition, or " phenomenal reality." Yet Kant's definite 
recognition of the part which the category of relation takes in 
the unifying of human knowledge is wholly confined to the 
discussion of the third of the four classes of categories. And 
here his scheme leads him to recognize only three kinds of 
relation, — namely, Inherence and Subsistence, Causality and 
Dependence, and Community or reciprocity between the active 
and the passive. 



164 A THEORY OF REALITY 

It is undoubtedly impossible to give any definition of the 
category of relation in general. It might be said a fortiori, 
we cannot tell what it is to be related, or even what we mean 
when we affirm relation of things in general, without assum- 
ing the very conception it is proposed to define. Definition 
itself is a relating ; — either by bringing the particular into a 
partial unity with the universal, or by bringing one event into 
a partial unity with another event as its cause, or by bringing 
one part of a thing into a partial unity with other parts, as 
forming a totality, etc. This very attempt to define, however, 
since it results in presenting a more vivid picture of the way 
in which different kinds of relation are concretely realized 
furnishes no unimportant clue to a fuller appreciation of the 
significance of this category. For every relation appears to us, 
and must be described, as a partial unification of two beings 
which, when considered irrespective of this particular relation, 
would- be incapable of being known together — the same stand- 
point being maintained. 

The metaphysical meaning and ontological value of what 
has just been somewhat obscurely indicated will appear clear 
when we have considered briefly the psychological genesis of 
the conception of relation. What is it " to relate" — or for the 
knowing mind so to function as to present itself with a picture 
of things, or events, under the general conception of relation ? 
Now, however difficult it may prove for different thinkers to 
agree as to the answer to the ontological problem, or even as 
to whether any answer to such a problem can be given, there 
is no doubt about the correct answer to the psychological 
question. To relate, from the subjective point of view, is to 
think ; it is to function as our intellect always does whenever 
we observe the simplest and most obvious relations ; or when- 
ever by elaborate processes of inference we reach those rela- 
tions that are most complex and hidden. Such intellection 
is necessary for the knowledge of relations. 

Whenever the attempt is made to regard experience wholly 



RELATION 165 

from the psychologist's point of view, it is seen that there can 
be no knowledge without that functioning of intellect which 
is, pre-eminently and essentially the faculty of relating. 
" Relation-feelings " — more properly called " feelings of 
change " — must indeed be admitted, if one is intent upon a 
complete analysis of the content of consciousness implied in 
the knowledge that A is related to B, whether as part to 
whole, cause to effect, means to end, in space, in time, or 
however related. The ideas, whether memory-images or 
images of more purely imaginative origin, which arise in 
connection with this "feeling" experience, are undoubtedly 
important factors in determining the way in which the relat- 
ing function shall be accomplished within the stream of con- 
sciousness. Neither can we fail also to observe that relating 
is an active process ; that judgments of relation are true deeds 
of will. But the distinctive thing about all " relating " is the 
manifestation of mind as intellect. It is intellect as a relating 
faculty which makes possible the knoidedge of relations, of 
whatever kind. Only when discriminating consciousness has 
developed the power of framing cognitive judgments can rela- 
tions be said, not merely to be implicit in the stream of con- 
sciousness, in the form of " relation-feelings," but to be known 
as actually existing between the objects of cognitive experience. 
It is, then, the nature of the cognitive judgment, regarded 
as the summing up of a process of relating, in which must be 
found the explanation of the genesis of the category of rela- 
tion. Its universality as a form of knowledge, when regarded 
from the subjective point of view, is necessary and complete. 
For all knowledge necessarily takes, as knowledge, the form 
of this judgment. It is the nature of this judgment, too, 
which explains what was formerly said in describing the 
work performed by the category of relation in the progres- 
sive organization of experience. The work is itself a partial 
unification of two otherwise wholly disparate and unknowable 
objects. T7e say " otherwise unknowable," — the same stand- 



166 A THEORY OF REALITY 

point being maintained. For two objects which refuse to be 
even partially unified, or judged as belonging together, under 
terms of any one particular kind of relation, may always be 
unified under some other relation by changing the point of 
view from which judgment is pronounced. No object, how- 
ever, can be known, can become an object of perception or 
of inference, that cannot be partially unified with other ob- 
jects by some kind of judgment of relation. The thing- A 
must be classed with the thing B, however different in qual- 
ities, size, shape, etc., as co-existent in the one space in 
which all things exist. If A is known as co-temporaneous 
with, or antecedent, or sequent to B, then the one time in 
which all things come into being, persist, and pass away, 
serves as a further principle of unification. "Time-wise," 
A is at one with B ; — although A may occupy more or less, 
in quantity, than B, of this one time. A may, or may not, 
be classed with B under any one of those particular forms of 
relation which serve for the partial unification of the parti- 
cular beings of the world. But in order to be known at all 
both must be judged as falling, together with other beings, 
under a unity brought about by certain forms of relation. 

It is, then, by being related that the different objects and 
" momenta " of man's experience as a " knower " are tempo- 
rarily and partially unified ; and are afterward, so to speak, 
released from these particular uniting bonds, only to enter 
into others of similar character. The only complete and final 
release, from all relations, for any object comes when it dis- 
appears entirely from the sphere of knowable reality. 

The same psychological view of the origin of the category 
of relation explains how the knowledge of any particular 
thing, or class of things, accumulates and develops in the 
history of the individual and of the race. From selected but 
changing points of view the different " momenta" or aspects 
of the thing, or the different members of the class, are 
thought together under the varying kinds of relation. In the 



KELATION 167 

development of the individual's perception, as dependent on 
time, on the distribution of attention, and on the external 
conditions limiting the quality, intensity, and " life-likeness " 
of the sense-elements, one may pass from a vague knowledge 
of "somewhat" over there (though one has no idea "what") 
to a knowledge involving more and more of apperception and 
of judgment as to the particular " what." This is the mental 
construction of the Thing as a concrete unity exemplifying 
various forms of relation, — both internal and toward other 
things. 

The same view shows us why things are known as having 
so many, and no more, principal kinds of relations. There 
are as many principal kinds of relations as there are points 
of view from which the mind may regard things as objects of 
relating activity ; and there are only so many. Thus the other 
categories in some sort set the limits within which the opera- 
tions of the relating intellect are conducted. Things may be 
related in space, or in time, or as respects the kind and 
amount of force belonging to, or operating upon them ; they 
may be related as respects quantity, and number, and forms, 
and laws ; they may sustain various forms of the causal rela- 
tion, such as we express by " production," " making," " effect- 
ing," " influencing," " stimulating," etc. ; they may be related, 
by virtue of likenesses and unlikenesses, in species, genera, 
families, and so on. Sensations, ideas, thoughts, and trains 
of reasoning, as such, may be related. The categories may 
themselves be considered as related ; some of them — as, for 
example, substance and attribute — in ways peculiar to them- 
selves. Thus, in his System der Philosopkie Wundt has a 
chapter on the " Relation of Transcendent Ideas to Meta- 
physical Yiews of the World ; " and in this chapter he con- 
siders the two ideas of an " infinite totality " and a " finite 
absolute unity " as related so that they " completely corre- 
spond " to the relation between the mathematical conceptions 
of the infinitely great and the infinitely small. 



168 A THEORY OF REALITY 

All that has been said thus far only means that whatever 
men think, or think about, must bear the form of thought. 
And since all knowledge is dependent upon thought, all that 
is known is known as related. So that, if on the one hand 
we maintain that relations exist for our thought, only as our 
relating activity constitutes the relations, on the other hand 
we must also maintain that relations are the forms which our 
thinking impresses upon all that has existence for thought. 

But now the important distinction emerges between subjec- 
tive relations and relations that are trans-subjective ; or — as 
one seems compelled to express the distinction in popular lan- 
guage — relations that are merely thought and relations that 
exist in reality. The student of systematic metaphysics can- 
not deny or abrogate the validity of some such distinction. 
It has already been seen that a system of subjective relations 
as compact as is the nature of man's functions of knowing and 
yet as all-inclusive as is the sphere of those functions, must 
be admitted. Suppose now it be denied that relations, in any 
way correlated to these, exist trans-subjectively. Suppose it 
to be affirmed that the only knowable relations which can be 
called actual are those consummated in the stream of con- 
sciousness between the different " momenta " of that stream. 
Relations, in reality, are thus limited to our own sensations, 
feelings, ideas, thoughts, etc. Strictly carried out, such a 
view results in compelling every thinker to regard himself 
as the only real being, — real, because unrelated to any other 
real being. The conception of reality is thus made identical 
with the idea of the Self regarded as absolutely independent 
and separated from all other actual minds and things. But 
such a conception makes void the psychology of knowledge, 
vitiates objective science, and destroys the foundations of 
the ethical and social order in man's consciousness as a 
knower ; it, indeed, ends in just that suicidal hypothesis of 
solipsism which has already been rejected. 

If, on the contrary, the actual existence of other selves, 



RELATION 169 

with whom I may come into intellectual, ethical, and social 
relations, is once admitted, — on whatever basis the admis- 
sion is placed ; then actually existent relations between real 
beings are also admitted. And if the distinction between 
truth and error be held valid in the commerce between these 
intellects, then the distinction between subjective relations 
and actual relations becomes a matter of fact. That is to say, 
it has become matter of fact that the intellect of A either 
does, or does not, relate B and C to itself, or to each other, as 
A, B, and C, are actually related. And if the number of selves 
constituting this community of real beings, and the complex- 
ity of the actual relations existing amongst them, exceeds 
the powers of the intellect of either A, B or C ; then also 
the subjective and the actual relations appertaining to this 
community do not correspond throughout. 

Nor can the claims of this distinction be arrested at the 
present point. For if knowers were, by their relating activ- 
ities to create all actual relations, and things were not them- 
selves actually related ; then these knowers would belong 
entirely to a world apart from the world of things. Of course, 
one cannot be ignorant of the answer which the Kantian sub- 
jective view of the nature of knowledge proposes to our problem. 
According to this view relations between things and minds, 
and relations amongst things, are all alike the work of the 
intellect's relating activity, which functions in a totally miracu- 
lous way after the fashion of the twelve categories. " Nature," 
and the laws of nature, are to be regarded as purely the con- 
struct of the mind of man. But, as has often been pointed 
out, Kant himself was obliged to assume, in an uncritical way, 
the positive conception of a trans-subjective reality for things 
which should serve the threefold purpose of being the un- 
known cause of our sense-experience, the ground of the limi- 
tations that control our scientific cognitions, and the goal of 
the higher activities of reason in its effort to reach its supreme 
unities. But all this is inexpressible and inconceivable with- 



170 A THEORY OF REALITY 

out implying terms of relation. Thus again the whole system 
of accounting for man's experience as a knower breaks utterly 
down in its effort to lift off from reality the load of the 
category of relation. 

Internal and destructive contradictions will be found in 
every attempt that ever has been made or can be made, to 
ground the cognitive experience of man in a real being which 
has neither internal relations, nor relations to his own mind. 
Words cannot be invented which are sufficiently charming or 
convincing to banish these contradictions from the conclu- 
sions of such an attempt. This is invariably true of the 
Reality envisaged, believed in, or excogitated, by every form 
of mysticism. Such mystical metaphysics has its entire 
content in contradictions. It constructs the One, from 
which all variety and manifoldness must come without any 
internal principle of differentiation; the Will that must 
create or evolve a world of infinite concrete complexity, with- 
out any guidance from thought, or stimulus of motif, or end 
suggestive of an idea ; the " self-consistent " Being, which 
maintains its consistency without any bond between the dif- 
ferent momenta of its own being, and somehow contrives to 
make a good show of itself to human consciousness without 
having itself any consciousness of what It is about. Its God 
is the Absolute ; and It must somehow be kept freed from all 
responsibility for the actual relations that the experience of 
man recognizes, and yet must be thought of, felt about, and 
behaved toward, as though It were the Ground of all these 
relations. In a word, it calls on us to recognize the Great 
Unrelated, which is, nevertheless, the Source of all relations. 

Within the bounds of human knowledge, then, no limits 
can be set to the category of relation. Whatever man 
knows as real is known as actually related. Whatever he 
conceives of as real is conceived of as related. The abso- 
lutely unrelated is both unknown and inconceivable. Eeality 
as a whole, must be known, if known at all, as a System of 



RELATION 171 

relations. The distinction between subjective relations and 
objective relations, or relations merely existing in thought and 
relations existing between real beings must be admitted. But 
this is a very different distinction from that between being 
related and being unrelated. The one is a distinction between 
the partial and the perfect, or between error and truth, or 
between ignorance and knowledge. The other is a distinction 
between the known and the knowable, on the one hand, and 
the unknown and unknowable, on the other hand. The Unre- 
lated or the Unknown is absolutely ineffective and valueless as 
a principle of explanation for the known and the conceivable 
world of realities. 

Reality, then, whether in the form of concrete actual 
things and minds, or when considered as that vague sort of 
Unity with which our thinking endows the entire system of 
such beings, or when converted into an explanatory principle 
and called either " Absolute " or " World-Ground " — is al- 
ways known as a Being-related. But if one keeps asking, 
u What is it really to be related?* 3 one can only answer with 
the tautology : '-It is, in general, just this — to be related." 
When interpreted by an appeal to that basis of experience in 
which the conception of relation has its origin, this plainly 
means : ^ To be related is to be an object of knowledge, 
because all knowledge is constituted through the function of 
relating faculty." But the being-related in reality of other 
selves, and of things in general, cannot be conceived of as 
wholly dependent upon the functioning of my relating faculty, 
or of the relating faculties of the other finite selves, who with 
me constitute the community of human minds. The total 
system of actualized relations is not mentally represented in 
any one stream of human consciousness ; nor in all these 
various streams of human consciousness, considered in their 
entire flow. Reality, in the large and considered as a system 
of relations, is too complex and vast for human minds com- 
pletely to compass. Indeed, there is no portion of Reality, no 



172 A THEORY OF REALITY 

single real Thing, whose internal and external relations are 
all completely and infallibly known by the entire race of 
thinking men. 

Our reflective thinking is not, however, without ample and 
satisfactory means for knowing what it is really to be related. 
This knowledge is like that which we have of all the cate- 
gories ; for they are all forms of being as known to us, and 
not simply forms of knowing. It is in s<?(f-knowledge that 
relating as a function of the knower, and reality of being 
related, are both actually united. My knowledge of my Self, 
like all my other knowledge, is dependent upon the develop- 
ment of my intellect, of my relating faculty. Every time I 
know myself, the achievement implies that I actively relate 
the different momenta or aspects of conscious life to one 
another and to the subject called Ego or Self ; and also relate 
this Self to other beings in the world of my experience. But 
to achieve this kind of knowledge I must actually be related, 
as I know myself to be related. For it is actual changes, 
and actual states and actual forms of mental representation, 
whether they have or have not any reference external to my- 
self, which are the objects of self-knowledge. Or, putting the 
case abstractly : as a knowing Self, I actively relate, or bring 
into the unity of an object of cognition, the different factors 
of experience ; but as a self known, I am an actual living 
unification of different factors of being. If to know, as a self 
knows itself, is to relate, — then to be, as a self knows itself 
to be, is to be really related. 

What has just been said amounts to this important con- 
clusion : Really to be related is really to be as I know myself 
to be — a systematic and unitary thought-being. So far as I 
really am a being related — an actuality of relations — I am 
not dependent upon the knowledge of other knowers for this 
being. I am what I am, whether you know me to be such or 
not. But both as knowing myself, and as being my Self, I 
am a dependent being. In my knowledge and in my being, 



RELATION 173 

I am dependency related to a system of beings which I 
cannot identify with myself. Yet these beings, too, I must 
know and conceive of after the analogy of my self. 1 This is 
as true of the so-called category of relation as it is true of any 
other of those fundamental forms under which all human 
knowledge exists and develops. I know other selves only in 
terms of internal or external relations. Every other man is 
known to me as a being that is the subject of changes in the 
stream of his consciousness which he relates to each other, 
and to himself, as I relate the conscious changes in that 
stream of consciousness I call myself. He is also a being 
that stands in essentially the same relations to other men, 
and to the system of physical things, as those in which I 
stand. And now as to what it is for him and for me, and for 
all other human beings who have developed enough to know 
anything, to be related in reality, we can only say : It is 
actually to a lead the same kind of a life" that each one 
finds himself leading. This is a life which is an actualized 
system of relations, all referable to one subject, in so far as 
they are internal, and yet all implying other actual systems 
of internal relations, to which this particular life stands de- 
pendency and externally related. 

And what is true of minds respecting this category is also 
true of things. So far as the application of the conception 
of relation goes, things are precisely like selves. In order to 
be actually related, and not merely related in those streams 
of consciousness which know themselves and which call them- 
selves men, things must have at least a certain amount of 
self-hood in themselves. No reality can exist simply as a 
system of relations constructed by some other reality ; but it 
must, so to speak, be in fact a seZf-constructed and self-con- 
sistent system of relations. This it must be, in order to 
vindicate any slightest claim to existence in reality. This 

1 Compare the chapter on "The Knowledge of Things and Knowledge of 
Self," chap, vii., Philosophy of Knowledge. 



174 A THEORY OF REALITY 

takes us back to the truth that a real Thing must be a thought- 
unity ; a series of states, that has set itself into a kind of 
partial and temporary independence by behaving in consist- 
ency with some idea. What, however, this particular thing, 
A, must be, in order to be actually related (and it cannot 
really be at all without being actually related), just that every 
other particular thing — whether B, C, D, etc. — must also 
be. Indeed, the partial and temporary independence which 
things must have, in order to be regarded as individuals, is 
itself only their more or less consistent forms of reaction 
upon an environment of other beings. Thus under the cat- 
egory of relation the whole world of concrete realities appears 
as a vast system of relations maintained amongst beings that 
have, at least, a partial and temporary existence as " self- 
constructed and self-consistent systems " of relations. The 
interior relations of each being, whether Self or Thing, are 
themselves, as it were, dependent upon and somehow absorbed 
in an all-inclusive System of Relations. 

The entire collection of concrete real beings — things and 
selves, actually known or only ideally conceivable — is actually 
inter-related. Only thus can any one of these real beings be 
known; only thus can the collection be conceived of as a 
system, as constituting one World. What now must this 
category mean, when we yield to the compulsion which the 
inherent constitution of all human knowledge imposes upon 
us, and apply it to the entire collection of beings, — to the 
one World ? Nothing different from what we have already 
found it to mean. For the categories are not to be threat- 
ened or coaxed. They do not change their nature, when 
applied to Nature — not even if this word be spelled with a 
capital. They do not bow to the demands of aspiration, — 
not even when men begin to talk of the Absolute or of God. 
It follows, then, that a System of Relations, conceived of as a 
totality and complete in itself can only be actualized in terms of 
a Self. In vain does the relating faculty strive to rid itself 



RELATION 175 

of this necessity imposed by its own constitution. Would it 
not be well to hail the necessity joyfully as a revelation of 
fundamental truth ? The mind of man cannot conceive of 
- the unrelated." under such terms as the Absolute, the Un- 
known, the All-One, the self-consistent Whole. All such 
terms have their uses and their values, in the effort to set 
forth certain aspects of Reality, conceived of as a System of 
self-constructed and self-consistent Relations ; they also have 
important bearings upon the practical life of morals and 
religion. But the truth of man's cognitive experience remains 
the same : The world that is either immediately given, or lies 
implicit, in this experience is necessarily a unity of related 
beings : and this world can be conceived of as such a unity, 
only in recognition of the truth that it is really — so far now 
only as the category of relation goes — an Absolute Self. 

TVe have stated the conclusion of a criticism of that con- 
ception which is ; - the mother of all the categories," under 
the following limitation. — " so far now only as the category 
of relation goes/' This limitation was added in order to 
avoid an injudicious and illogical haste in trying to reap the 
fruits of critical and metaphysical cultivation. But even 
when stated with this limitation, there are two most import- 
ant corollaries which follow immediately from the main pro- 
position. And, first : The total system of actually existing 
relations cannot be conceived of as related in an external 
way : It cannot be related to some other being, which is 
to be conceived of as standing, so to speak, upon terms of 
equality with itself. The rather must all actual relations be 
considered as really internal to this System ; they are its 
" self-consistent " modes of behavior, the forms of its Life. 
They all belong to Itself ; they are consistent with Itself : 
they are determined by Irs own immanent principles of be- 
havior. From different human points of view, the changing 
relations seem partly subjective and partly objective, partly 
imaginary and partly true to actual fact. From these 



176 A THEORY OF REALITY 

points of view, the distinction between relations that are 
merely in thought and relations that are also in reality is a 
distinction valid for the experience of the individual knower or 
mind. From these points of view also, certain relations are 
internal and belong to the Self, and certain others are exter- 
nal and belong to the Self as somehow united with other 
selves and other things. But these points of view, although 
valid for cognition and revealing to us the very nature of 
reality, are only partial. From the point of view from which 
the entire System of Relations must be regarded as having a 
Unity analogous to that which we know ourselves to have, all 
relations appear as alike interior and yet actual. 

It is in some such way as the foregoing that we must, for the 
present, understand the phrase, an " Absolute Self." This is 
the very opposite of regarding the supreme, the complete, 
Reality as equivalent to the Unknown, because the unrelated. 
This Self is " absolute," not because It is unrelated, but because 
all relations must be regarded as, for It, self-constructed 
and self-consistent. Within this system — and only as within 
this system can any concrete reality exist — all particular 
beings have a kind of double actuality. They are partial and 
temporary unities, comprising a variety of internal relations, 
and standing to each other in a variety of external relations ; 
but the One Reality constructs and comprehends them all ; 
for all of their relations, both internal and external, are 
within the One Reality. 

But the second of the two corollaries which follow from the 
attempt to apply the conception of relation to the total system 
of real beings is equally important. We have spoken of 
self-knowledge as bringing into our cognitive experience a 
certain system of relations that are partially " self-constructed 
and self-consistent," Such language implies, however, that 
intellect and will combine in the realization of such a system. 
It is intellect "functioning" or active intelligence, which con- 
structs that system of subjective relations which is called 



RELATION 1T7 

knowledge, and which is in its essential character a relating 
of different items and " momenta " of the flowing stream of 
consciousness. It is the same active intelligence which be- 
comes the object of knowledge, whenever the Self is known. 
In other words, to know relations, and to be related, as the 
knowing self acts, and the known self exists — this is nothing 
less than to live the life of a conscious intelligence. And only 
as some knower projects into the otherwise senseless and dead 
thing the semblance of a principle of active intelligence can 
even that "thing" be known as actually existent. So far 
forth and only so far forth, as it constructs and consistently 
maintains the appropriate internal and external relations, can 
any existence really be related. But this is to realize both 
Intellect and Will. 

What is true of the individual beings of the world is a 
fortiori true of the system of related beings, of that One Being 
in which all actual relations have their ground. An actual 
system of relations can exist only within such a Reality as 
combines all the powers of an active intelligence, and is thus 
a living and unifying Intellect and Will. But here are con- 
ceptions of Unity, Force, Law, and Final Purpose, either 
quite implicit or only half concealed. 



12 



CHAPTER VIII 

TIME 

Both implicit and express reference has already been made 
to two of the universal forms of knowledge whose characteristics 
differ in a marked way from those of all the other categories. 
Analysis of the all-inclusive concept of reality showed that 
every particular being is known as existing " in time " ; and 
that every other being than one's own — in the most interior 
and self-centred conception of the self — is also known as 
existing " in space." Neither is a knowledge which shall set 
us into relations with other beings in a system of reality, pos- 
sible without applying to ourselves some of the various modi- 
fications of spatial qualities and spatial relations. No ethical 
or social existence or development is known or conceivable by 
man, which is not based upon a certain confidence in the 
trans-subjective reality of space. But especially in discussing 
the metaphysics of change and of relation, constant reference 
was either made or implied to the universal character of the 
conceptions of time and space. The particular beings which 
are made real to man by his experience with natural objects 
and with his fellow men, all exist, change, and enter into 
various relations, " in time " and " in space." 

What, however, is the significance for metaphysics of the 
language popularly employed when speaking of these concep- 
tions ; — since this language is so notably different from that 
employed in speaking of the other categories ? All minds and 
things are said to exist, to change, to develop, to be related, 
" in time " and " in space." But for such conceptions as " pure 



TIME 179 

being," change or becoming, and relation, similar terms are 
not customarily employed. To be sure, one might say that 
" things fleet " and " things extend," in somewhat the same 
way as that in which they are said to exist, change, grow, and 
to stand related. One may also depart from the plain talk of 
workaday life far enough to remark, that " the times are in a 
process of change," or that " the places of our former acquain- 
tance are no longer in existence." 

If all the varied uses of different languages are taken into 
the account, it will appear that the conceptions figuratively 
expressed by the preposition " in," or its equivalents, are 
exceedingly numerous and difficult to bring together under 
any single conception. Their employment, however, in con- 
nection with abstract conceptions answering to the words 
"space" and u time" implies that what answers to these 
conceptions is thought of, not as a reality, nor a quality, nor 
a relation of realities, but as a medium of realities. Things 
exist, change, grow, and stand related ; and among the quali- 
fications which can be applied to their existence, change, and 
growth, are those of duration and extension. But when an 
attempt is made to express our conviction as to what in reality 
it is that makes possible the enduring and the extension of 
things, as well as their changes, their growth, and their vari- 
eties of relations, we find ourselves forced back into the same 
significant figure of speech. The answer must always be given 
by a repetition of such phrases as " in time " and " in space." 
Time and Space are thus regarded in the light of universal 
" media." Things, with all that they really are and all that 
belongs to them, are " in " these media. 

It is characteristic of naive, popular consciousness to accept 
without reflection the figures of speech which it employs for 
the expression of knowledge and for the practical purposes of 
communication between men. The positive sciences, too, 
even when the conceptions of time and space constitute the 
chief material of their investigation, do not essentially change 



180 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the significance of the popular figures of speech. Mathematics 
and mathematical physics indeed, treat the succession and 
duration of things, their extension, and their changes of posi- 
tion, as though they were entities. They thus develop an 
elaborate science of temporal and spatial relations, and they 
work out mathematical formulas for the exact statement of 
these relations. But the student of these sciences knows 
quite well that he is only dealing with abstractions ; that there 
really are no successions and durations and extensions, exist- 
ing independently of concrete realities ; much less even is there 
any single existence corresponding to the conception of dura- 
tion as such, or of extension as such. He needs only a little 
reflection to convince him that these qualifications of things 
must somehow be considered as resulting from the orderly 
arrangement in their action upon Mm of different " momenta" 
or parts of Reality, which have to be combined into some kind of 
a living unity in order to lay claim to be real existences. Of 
course, too, those sciences which make no pretence to a scien- 
tific treatment of temporal and spatial qualities and relations 
do not need to depart from the popular and figurative point of 
view. They may be content to employ naively the figure of 
a " medium " in which realities exist. 

Metaphysical theories, with their ontological conceptions 
answering to the words, Space and Time, find no difficulty in 
accepting the popular and the scientific points of view, — at 
least, so far as their negations are concerned. Indeed, they 
are all accustomed to deny an actual existence to these cate- 
gories, whether as themselves entities or as states and quali- 
ties of entities. Glaring internal contradictions can be shown 
to result from the attempt to regard space and time as 
entities. Metaphysicians are wont to suppose that they have 
conferred some great favor upon common sense and upon 
physical science when the results of the uncritical ways of 
regarding these categories have been pointed out. 

The truth is, however, that this negative criticism has been 



TIME 181 

so often and so thoroughly done, that no great amount of 
originality can ever be displayed in doing it over again. This 
is especially, though by no means exclusively, true of meta- 
physics since the beginning of the reign of the Kantian criti- 
cism. The Hindu philosophy discovered centuries ago that 
time and space are not only illusory, but are the creators of 
illusion. To know reality only as spatial and temporal is 
to be the victim of Maya. Kant's critique of these transcen- 
dental forms of all sensuous cognitions, and of imagination 
as based upon and limited by such cognition, was relatively 
meagre and dogmatic enough. Even Schopenhauer, who 
intended to exalt the truth of perception in opposition to the 
truth of ratiocination, finds in time and space nothing more 
sure than those subjective forms of differentiation which 
arise from the illusory activity of intellect ; and intellect is 
mere product of the brain, the way in which blind Will 
gets itself duped with show of knowledge. But as to the 
true Nature of Reality, space and time have, of course, 
nothing to tell us. 

Now if any modern student of metaphysics were likely to 
adopt the senseless delusion that time is really some kind of 
a long-drawn out entity, which has only length and neither 
breadth nor thickness, or that space is actually a spread-out 
being with the three dimensions of length, breadth, and 
thickness, it might seem worth while to take pains over such 
crudities. Then the customary questions might be repeat- 
edly proposed: "In what is this entity of time drawn out?" 
and " In what is the three-dimensioned being of space 
spread out ? " It seems to us, however, to promise a better 
motived and conducted course of criticism, if we begin by 
accepting the confession of everybody that, somehow, space 
and time are like " media " for the orderly arrangement of 
existences, of changes, and of relations. 

And, in truth, what the common-sense of folk generally, 
and of the student of physical science in particular, objects to 



182 A THEORY OF REALITY 

having concluded by the metaphysicians is an affair of quite 
another kind. Minds and things are entities, — so the aver- 
age man thinks ; changes actually occur in them, and rela- 
tions actually exist between them. Just as firmly does the 
popular and naive consciousness insist on the conviction that 
time and space have something to tell us about the Nature 
of Reality. And when reality is spoken of in connection with 
the conceptions of time and space, its meaning does not corre- 
spond to what Kant meant by " phenomenal reality." The 
cognitive consciousness of mankind refuses to credit the 
doctrine of the merely subjective origin and applicability of 
time and space. In this refusal our sympathies are with the 
cognitive consciousness of mankind, — and this to the extent 
of accusing the scholastic metaphysics of having, as a rule, 
sophisticated the whole problem. In other words, the con- 
ditions, nature, and valid implicates of our knowledge of 
reality are such as to refute the Kantian view of the trans- 
cendental ideality only, and to compel the opposite view of 
the transcendental reality also, of both time and space. 

This, then, is the state of the problem offered by the cate- 
gories of time and space. They are universal and inescap- 
able forms of knowledge ; and knowledge always has to do 
with reality. But when one comes to inquire into the rela- 
tion existing between these forms of knowledge and either 
the concrete realities or that System of Reality which it is 
the aim of metaphysical thinking to conceive of as a whole, 
this relation appears peculiar — even unique. Time and 
space cannot be identified with any of these realities, or with 
this system as a whole ; neither can they be spoken of as 
qualifying particular beings, or as expressing one aspect of 
the sum-total of being, in the same way as can the other 
essential characteristics of reality. Here, then, is an appar- 
ent contradiction, — or rather a puzzle which requires further 
reflective thinking for its theoretical solution. For the meta- 
physics which resolves time and space into purely subjective 



TIME 183 

forms of knowledge, leaves men a world of mere "appear- 
ances " for their known world, and offers to their faith an 
unknowable abstraction — a Unity that is, but is no what — 
as the only " Reality." How, then, shall ice so interpret our 
cognitive use of the categories of time and space as to construe 
reality in valid terms of human knowledge? 

The question just raised we shall now try to answer for the 
category of Time. This answer is most fitly approached by 
briefly noting the principal points respecting the psycholo- 
gical origin of the time-concept. With all growth of knowl- 
edge the development of cognitive ' ; time-consciousness " is 
inseparably connected. The connection is reciprocal. For 
time-consciousness never develops in the form simply of a 
knowledge of particular objects in the "stream of conscious- 
ness " ; — never, also, as a conception of merely empty time. 

In tracing the psychological origin of this category, the 
experience in which the most primary and rudimentary time- 
consciousness is formed must first of all be considered. This 
experience consists of a succession of psychoses, all of which 
are conscious processes of greater or less duration, and are 
capable of being marked off from each other by the subject 
of them, through their differences in intellectual, emotional, 
and volitional content. Ordinarily these glide into each 
other with a somewhat smooth and continuous flow. Xot 
infrequently, however, sudden and rude shocks occur, which 
bring into sharper contrast the different qualifications of the 
successive states, and so emphasize both the duration of the 
single states and the transition from one state to another. 
But this sort of experience affords material for the develop- 
ment of a genuine time-consciousness, provided — but only 
provided — some intelligence can look upon it from an ideal 
point of view. As a mere feature of the stream of conscious- 
ness, unrecognized and not understood, such an experience 
contains nothing fully to account for the knowledge of Self 
or of Things as " really being in time." 



184 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Neither is it through mere association of conscious pro- 
cesses, however complicated and habitually experienced, that 
a true time-consciousness can be developed. Such a develop- 
ment requires discriminating consciousness and growth of in- 
tellectual powers ; and so much intellectual discernment is not 
a simple affair. On the contrary, it involves voluntary atten- 
tion, with its " alternate diffusion and concentration," moving 
" like the foot of a snail, which never leaves the surface it is 
traversing" (to borrow Dr. Ward's illustration). It involves 
also growth of self-consciousness ; since recognitive memory 
is necessary to any growth of the higher forms of time-con- 
sciousness. Events must be set by such memory into a 
certain time-relation with other events, all of which belong 
to the cognitive experience of the same self, as a succession 
of psychoses. Inference and constructive imagination are 
forms of mental life that are also necessary to the rise and 
the growth of the same experience, all of which includes this 
category. The time during which I have been existent, 
although always in a succession of changing states, is by no 
means all covered by my most earnest and successful efforts 
at recollection ; much less is it all representable in terms of 
any one act of recognitive memory. Between the definite 
"I-am-now" of self-consciousness and the less definite " I- 
was-then" of memory intervenes the indefinite " I-have-been " 
of inference ; for this link is not to be filled up either by 
self-consciousness or by memory, but only by a combination 
of thought and imagination which sketches a mere schema of 
possible particulars. And these same faculties project into 
the third form of time — the future — what is neither remem- 
bered as past nor consciously envisaged as belonging to the 
present. 

All the life of the Self — as feeling, will, and intellect, in 
various forms of the manifestation of these faculties — is 
therefore concerned in the origin of time-consciousness. If 
now, from this point of inquiry, the question be raised, 



TIME 185 

" Where, then, is time ? " the reply must be : " My time 
is in me ; and yours is in you," etc. That is to say : 
Time, as the subjective but universal and necessary form of 
cognitive experience, is both actually experienced in the life 
of the self and is also all constructed by the activity of the 
self. It is, so to speak, carried along with every act of 
knowledge as the formal condition of any such act taking 
place. If from the same point of view an explanation be 
sought for the three kinds of time, — present, past, and 
future, — psychology answers in essentially the same way. 
Present time for us is the construct of our own self-conscious 
self, dependent upon the " grasp of consciousness " for its 
clearness of outline, its fulness of content, and its relation 
to other moments in the life of the same self. Past time is 
the construct of our own self, exercising recognitive memory 
and so relating other moments, with more or less clearness 
of outline and fulness of content, to the present moment. 
And future time is real in anticipation, when, by an act of 
thought and imagination we outstrip the actual succession of 
our self-conscious states, and, abstracting from what is hap- 
pening now around us, project the self into conditions differ- 
ent from those known to be present. For the only way to 
" realize " the future is to imagine one's self so changed in 
feeling, thought, or environment, as to separate between this 
self to be, and the now self-conscious or the remembered 
self. The leap forward in anticipation and the leap back- 
ward in memory carry with them the same characteristic exist- 
ence, and involve the exercise of the same mental activities ; 
only the emphasis laid upon these activities in their distribu- 
tion is different. This truth is illustrated by the well known 
fact of psychology that, subjectively, memory binding us to 
the past and imagination transporting us into the future are 
often mingled and even interchanged. Thus men not infre- 
quently remember what has yet to be, or what has already 
been only in imagination ; while what has really been in the 



186 A THEORY OF REALITY 

past often appears to them rather as " in a dream," — that is, 
as matter of the image-making faculty in its most illusory 
forms of activity. 

From the psychological point of view simply, then, there is 
no difference in the " actuality " of time, whether present, 
past, or future. Each of these three forms of time really is 
— only as the construct of the active self ; neither of them 
is any more real than are the others except as it is made to 
be real by the action of this self. It is customary, indeed, 
to affirm that only present time has reality ; only " now " 
actually is. Thus Lotze, even after confessing that " there 
would be no meaning in the statement that things exist in 
time, if they did not incur some modification by so existing 
which they would not incur if they did not exist in time," 1 goes 
on later to deny the reality of both past and future, and to 
reduce to an abstraction " the proper meaning of that reality 
which we ascribe only to the present." The vacillating posi- 
tion which this philosopher holds toward the category of time 
is, perhaps, as well summed up in the following, as in any 
other sentence quotable from his writings : " There is no 
real time in which occurrences run their course ; but in the 
single elements of the universe which are capable of a lim- 
ited knowledge there develops itself the idea of a time in 
which they assign themselves a position in relation to their 
more remote or nearer conditions as to what is more or less 
long past, and in relation to their more remote or nearer 
consequences as to a future that is to be looked for more or 
less late." 

It would not aid our discussion to point out the contra- 
diction between these two sentences of Lotze's, or to show 
how profoundly his treatment of the category of time involves 
him in other contradictions with the fundamental place 
given in his philosophy to the principle of becoming. But 
these, and all similar declarations so rife in systems of meta- 

1 System of Philosophy ; Part II., Metaphysic ; Book II., chap. iii. 



TIME 187 

physics, are challenges to review the actual facts of cognitive 
experience. These facts, when treated from the standpoint 
of psychology, remind us that the ' ; now " of consciousness is 
no more real than is the " there-was" or the "there-will-be" 
of consciousness. Psychologically considered, in every act 
of recognitive memory the past is realized ; and in every 
rational act of anticipatory inference and prediction the 
future is realized. Without development of time-conscious- 
ness in all its three forms, as consciousness of the present, 
consciousness of the past, and consciousness of the future, no 
knowledge can take place. — Things can no more be real " in " 
the mere present, than in the long past or the remote future. 
In other words, in order that any real beings may exist and 
become known to us, the continuance of time — as present, 
past, and future — must be regarded as the medium in which 
these beings exist. So that if time were purely subjective, 
the temporal existence of real beings at all would not be 
secured by positing some peculiar reality for that particular, 
ever changing and never abiding moment which we call 
' ; now." The actuality of time present alone does not suffice 
to enrich the content of reality. 

The psychological origin of time-consciousness, is, then, to 
be found in that complex and peculiar form of functioning to 
which the mind subjects its own states. As an active, compar- 
ing, and self-conscious intellect, it knows all these states as 
more or less enduring, and as successive. Those states 
whose content is constituted with little conscious reference to 
their place in an order of succession which involves other 
states, it knows as its own present. Other conscious pro- 
cesses it knows as memories, and these are set somewhere in a 
place as " past " for the self ; still others it projects into im- 
agined (not merely self-conscious or remembered) relations as 
states that may yet be. All these three ways of knowing its 
own states in an orderly way necessarily enter into the experi- 
ence in which its consciousness of time originates and stows. 



190 A THEORY OF REALITY 

not determine both streams of consciousness to locate it in 
memory at the same place. What is an obstacle in the way 
of preventing A and B coming to some " common time " is 
an overwhelming obstacle in the way of any multitude of 
men coming to the same time. Thus the purely subjective 
view of time-consciousness destroys the possibility of society, 
of history, of the intercourse and development of the race. 
And that it destroys the possibility of every form of science 
which requires the exact measurement of time, there is no 
need even to illustrate. 

It is customary to rescue time from the devouring maw of 
such solipsistic idealism by compounding a doctrine which 
maintains both the objectivity of time and the relativity of 
time. To avoid the ambiguity which the words " objective," 
etc., have in such connections, we will take the liberty of 
sometimes substituting for it such other terms, as " trans- 
subjective," " external," etc. 

The conception which we wish now to examine is not am- 
biguous ; it denies that the duration or the time-order of actual 
events is dependent upon the duration and the time-order of 
the individual minds which perceive or conceive of the 
events ; it affirms that things do actually come into existence, 
change their states and relations, and cease to be, as respects 
time-form, as well as respects all our other forms of knowing 
them. Things are really " in time ; " and the reason why we 
do not always know them as they really are, — do not per- 
ceive or conceive of their durations and arrangements in time 
in such a manner as that our time-consciousness is an accurate 
picture of these transactions, — is to be found in the nature of 
ourselves and in the character of our relations to things. That 
all men's ordinary knowledge and all their scientific formulas 
are based upon some such assumption as this, does not admit 
of doubt. Let its meaning be made clearer and its validity 
tested by throwing it into a form of illustration such as has 
already been adopted. Over a large portion of the earth the 



TIME 191 

rising and the setting of the sun, and its included movement 
through the sky, are given in a certain time-order to millions 
of human beings. The objective or external series of trans- 
actions is, as a matter of acknowledged fact, mentally 
represented in as many millions of different ways. These 
differences themselves are partly resolvable into mental dif- 
ferences, — of attention, memory, grasp of consciousness, 
etc., — and partly into more important differences of physical 
relations. If the time-consciousness of any three persons, 

A, B, and <?, who have repeatedly regarded this object from 
substantially the same point of view, does not accurately cor- 
respond, the reason for the failure is said to be found in some 
subjective cause ; — the cause is a mental fault or inefficiency 
peculiar to one or more of the three. If all three had been 
equally attentive, accurate in memory, and trustworthy in 
description, the time-series of the sun — aS^, S 2 , S s , . . . S n — 
would have been " substantially the same " in each of the 
three streams of consciousness. 

Now such a mode of conception as that above plainly con- 
tains something which cannot be explained as wholly due to 
the a priori character of the time-consciousness in which A, 

B, and <?, all alike share. It is not a matter which can be 
resolved into either inherent or acquired characteristics of 
time-consciousness alone. For two similar yet differently 
located mental representations — such as the sun that rose in 
the morning and the sun just setting, or S± and S n — do not 
necessarily result in the mental representation of a time filled, 
and a space passed, by one and the same real object ; they do 
not necessarily so result, even if we are prepared to disregard 
the fact that A, B, and (7, agree, in the main, in their time- 
series of representations. The morning sun can easily be 
made to " appear " to one eye on the horizon and to the other 
in the heavens as at " high noon ; " subjectively regarded, it is 
just as conceivable that its transit might be in the reverse of 
the actual direction ; or that the sun might hang stationary — 



192 A THEORY OF REALITY 

as, indeed, it apparently does for a considerable time in the 
summer of the highest latitudes. From the point of view of 
the time-concept only, 8 might move from its point of rising 
to its point of setting, without appearing, or even actually 
being, at different points between ; thus, the object now 
appears at r, and then the same object appears at s, without 

any intermediate appearances along the line m (r ™ s). 

It is only the nature of space which prevents such conceptions 
or such actual events as this. Nor can it be claimed that any 
particular time-order belongs, of necessity, to this or to any 
other natural event, merely because of the necessary and 
a priori nature of time. Now it is just this particular time- 
order which constitutes the essential feature of the knowledge 
that the sun rose this morning and has just set ; and it is the 
agreement of a number of subjective time-series in the con- 
sciousness of the same trans-subjective or external order 
which constitutes the metaphysical problem offered by every 
such experience with things. In other words, why do A, B, 
and O, find their time-consciousnesses agreeing in the mental 
representation of an object, which all alike regard as not them- 
selves, going through a series of actual changes in the order 

But now we are reminded that of the millions who mentally 
represent the Sun as rising, passing across the sky, and setting 
on its other side, the great majority by no means accord with 
the time-series of A, B, and O. For the men who live on the 
hill-top and the men who live in the valley the actual series 
of changes, S t , S 2 , S 3 . . . S n , is different, both time-wise and 
otherwise. And with every considerable change in longitude 
and latitude, from East to West and North to South around 
the entire globe the same thing is true. But to explain this 
our acquired knowledge of the facts emphasizes the influence 
of the trans-subjective time-order of the phenomena and not 
the subjective differences in the different streams of conscious- 
ness. The causes are chiefly resolved into changes in the 



TIME 193 

physical points of view. Thus D, F, and F, are required on 
scientific grounds, if they will represent the time-series S u S,, 
S t . . . S n , in accordance with trans-subjective facts, to agree 
with one another but to differ materially from the mental rep- 
resentations of A, B, and C. If the Arctic explorer were to 
experience the same subjective series as that experienced by 
the observer from the equator, one (or both) of them would be 
held to be suffering from an illusion. The actual relation of 
the two groups (A, B, and C, and D, F, and F.) to S absolutely 
requires that the time-order of their mental representations 
of S shall be markedly different. And here the important 
factor in the differentiation is the behavior of S — regarded as 
a series of changes that are trans-subjective and external to 
both groups of conscious observers. To account for such 
experiences by alleging the subjective character of time-con- 
sciousness is rightly regarded by the man of common-sense 
and by the man of science as entirely unsatisfactory. When 
Benvenuto Cellini saw the sun in the midnight darkness 
of his cell, his experience may be referred to a subjective 
ground. But when A, being in Rome at the same absolute 
time with D, who is at the North Cape, fails to see the mid- 
night sun which the latter clearly sees, the causes for this 
difference are to be found in the different objective relations 
of A and B to the real being of S. 

But there is little need to multiply illustrations ; although 
all human experience could be drawn upon, if need were, to 
furnish illustrations. For human cognition cannot take place 
without embodying, in its very structure, the trans-subjective 
application of the category of Time. What has particularly 
been emphasized by the just previous discussion is this : The 
fullest possible acknowledgment of the relativity of all time- 
consciousness^ and especially of all mental measurements of 
time, does not in the least impair men's confidence in the trans- 
subjective applicability of the concept of time. For this relativ- 
ity of time-consciousness is not described with fidelity to 

13 



194 A THEORY OF REALITY 

our common experience when it is regarded as, essentially 
considered, a time-relation between mental representations. 
This relativity is itself essentially considered, a manifold sys- 
tem of actual relations between each Self and a world of Things. 
To convert the fact that the time-consciousness of the in- 
dividual is a subjective affair, the conditions of which lie 
partly within the mental constitution of the individual, into a 
theory that the entire concept of time has only a subjective 
basis, is a leap in argument which overcomes all the difficul- 
ties only by disregarding them. 

Nor are the facts of experience met by those metaphysicians 
who hold that the basis for the objectivity of time lies wholly 
in that common mental constitution which compels men to 
perceive, and conceive of, all their objects, as in time. For 
this theory settles nothing as to the causes in particular why 
men agree, within certain limits, and disagree within certain 
other limits, in respect of the duration and time-order which 
all individual transactions in the world of things appear to 
them to have. Both the agreement and the disagreement are 
such that its ground must be partly trans-subjective ; the 
ground must lie, that is, in the actual time-series which 
belongs to the things that change. Or, to state the same 
truth in more concrete terms : All the changing states and 
relations of the object, 0, are given to me in a certain time- 
series of mental images which are mine ; and which are my 
time-consciousness as determined for this particular case. 
The moment I regard this series, E x , E 2 , E 3 , . . . E n (Ego^ 
Egoo, etc.,) as communicable to you, and debatable with you, 
I make three assumptions. First, I assume that you are 
going through with another series of mental processes, A l9 
A'n A 3 , . . . A n (Alter i, Alter i, etc.), which is essentially like 
mine, in that it is a succession of psychoses " in time " and, 
is referable to the same object. But, second, I assume that 
this series is unlike mine, in that it is yours and you are 
immediately conscious of it. And, finally, besides these dif- 



TIME 195 

ferences which are due to subjective causes, your time-con- 
sciousness is assumed to be differentiated from mine, on 
account of the different relations in which you and I stand to 
this same object. Here, then, are two subjective time-series, 
which have their likenesses and their differences explained by 
the assumption of different relations in which the two subjects 
stand to the same series of changes in the object-thing. 
That is to say, on the supposition that actually goes 
through the time-series, 1; (9 2 , 3 . . . n , I pass through the 
time-series U l9 E 2 , E 3 . . . E n , and you pass through the time- 
series Ai, A 2 , A 3 . . . A n ; but the cause for E ± etc., being 
unlike A l7 etc., is to be found in the general fact of the two 
subjects E and A being constantly in different relations 
toward the trans-subjective time-series, Oi, 2 , 3 . . . n . 
The assumptions necessary to explain any common agreement 
amongst men as to the particular character of a world-order of 
happenings in time are similar to those considered above ; 
but, usually, they are infinitely more complicated. This com- 
plication, moreover, is chiefly created on the side of things 
rather than on the side of selves. To be sure, there are no two 
men, the subjective-conditions of whose time-consciousness 
corresponds in all particulars ; but so far as the metaphysi- 
cal treatment of the category of time is concerned such 
merely subjective particulars may be disregarded. The gen- 
eral fact of substantial agreement in the essentials of time- 
consciousness — the fact, that is, that all men perceive and 
conceive of all events, psychical and physical, as happening in 
time, and as having some duration and place in an objective 
time-series ■ — is explained by referring it to the constitution of 
the human mind. Time-form, as present, past, and future, is 
the way in which all men perceive and conceive of all changes 
as taking place, whether in themselves, in other men, or in 
things. But the complex of things is a multifarious and 
infinitely complicated system of happenings. For every 
" now," regarded as covered by the grasp of any human con- 



196 A THEORY OF REALITY 

sciousness, the number of happenings which occur within this 
one system — in Nature so-called — is quite incalculable. 
For every " then " in the past, whether as definitely fixed by 
memory or imagined vaguely, the same thing was true. For 
every " then " in the future, no less innumerable will be the 
happenings with which it will be filled when it has become 
the " now " of that future time. The world's time is no thin 
line in which a feeble grasp of consciousness brings fitfully 
together some half-dozen simple elements at most, and thus 
imparts to them that unity of reality which things have when 
happening for me, in the same time. But considered as past, 
present, or future, the World's time is no whit different from 
my time. Its " now " is the same as my " now " — considered 
time-wise. And for the world to have been, ten thousand 
years ago, when I was not, is no different as respects the 
world's relation to time from that in which I am now stand- 
ing to my being of ten years ago. 

It is, however, in the number of the happenings, and the 
complexity of their interrelations, that the world's time differs 
from the time in which every individual's stream of con- 
sciousness flows on. The attempt is sometimes made to re- 
present this difference by increasing the breadth of the 
stream of time. But in the world-wide series of events it 
takes no more of a " now " for ten million times ten million 
things to happen than it takes for a single psychosis in the 
" now " of a human consciousness. This is not because the 
World does not change in time ; it is because the World 
can do so much more than you and I can do in a given 
amount of time. In fact, what you and I can do is a part of 
the world's infinitude of events, — all in the same time. 
While you think, I dream : and then while I study, you eat 
your dinner ; in the same meanwhile, hundreds of human 
beings are born and die ; countless myriads of microbes and 
living germs begin and end their existence; the planetary 
system and all the heavenly bodies are bowled along 



TIME 197 

incalculably complicated courses throughout thousands of 
miles of space ; and who shall make a beginning of even 
conceiving what an infinity of changes an infinity of atoms 
are going through ? 

Let now the effort be made faithfully to present that pic- 
ture of the trans-subjective application of time which human 
science, in its greatly enlarged knowledge of the nature and 
the transactions of the world of things, considers necessary 
to its very life. Xote well : as regards the meaning of the 
category of time, and its applicability to things, the utmost 
refinements of science differ in no respect from the coars- 
est notions of unreflective common-sense. The speed with 
which some of the cosmic processes go on is, indeed, such 
that no grasp of consciousness is quick or deft enough to 
represent them accurately. On the other hand, the stretches 
of time which must elapse while others of these processes 
mature, prove equally battling to imagination in its efforts 
to present the infinite extension of time. But, as we have 
already said, the kind of time in which science sets these 
processes is the same as that in which each one's own little 
world of experience is set. It is only the number and com- 
plication of the changes in states and relations which are 
taking place at every instant that distinguishes the World's 
time from the time of the plain man's consciousness. In 
other words, u to be in time" is one and the same tiling for you 
and for mt. and for the whole system of realities. 

Xow this infinity of simultaneous transactions may fitly be 
symbolized in the following way : Let oo stand for the world's 
happenings — all of them, quoad their infinity. At no time 
are they representable by a mere A, B, C, . . . N; or an (a+b+ 
<H-<#)+(5+c+c?+e-) ? etc.; as though you and I, and all the men 
of lofty imagination and scientific training could, by any 
combination of mental effort, at a single instant, picture them 
completely. Suppose, for example, an agreement were made 
amongst all the savants and philosophers of earth's millions 



198 A THEORY OF REALITY 

that, at a given instant of absolute time, each one should 
perform an appointed task of mentally representing a certain 
number of the world's transactions at that instant ; would the 
results, when compounded, give a full and accurate picture of 
the world's then present transactions ? Not better than the 
analysis of a single salt drop would enable us to comprehend 
the tides, and storms, and monsters strange and terrible, 
that make up the reality of the ocean ! It is no thin strip of 
actuality, no cross-section of a cylinder infinite in length, but 
measurable in diameter by standards of human imagination 
and intellection, of which we are speaking now. 

Time-wise, however, the life of the world is, according to 
the conceptions of science, as easily representable within any 
given area, as is the life of any one of us. It is in reality a 
succession which may be symbolized by go i, oo 2 , oo 3 , . . . 
co n . But no oo 2 is to be conceived of as separate from its an- 
tecedent oo x , or its sequent co 3 ; — whether as respects the na- 
ture of its total content, or by the interposition of a barrier of 
empty time between the two. For this actual world of ours 
cannot be known as created wholly anew at every instant of 
its existence in time. And this conviction of enduring 
existences, and of real causal connections which constitute 
an infinity of bonds between each oo in the series, leads the 
thought backward to the categories which have already been 
examined. It also involves conceptions which still await 
examination, — such as those of the world's Unity, and of the 
influence of common forms and forces acting under unchang- 
ing laws. Although time is necessary for all these aspects 
of the world's life, the reality of time is no sufficient expla- 
nation of them. Of course, also, any thought of interpolating 
some fraction of empty time between the successive members 
of the series, oo 1 . . . oo n , is a violation of the very assump- 
tion with which the mind starts, and under which it con- 
structs this picture of such a series. The world's time is 
never an empty framework in which hypothetical transactions 



TIME 199 

might conceivably take place. It is nothing but this continuous 
succession of an infinity of interrelated changes — the flow " in 
time " of the infinitely rich content of the Being of the World. 
The arrogance of subjectivism can reach no more transcend- 
ent height than to suppose that the actuality of the world's 
time is in the least degree affected in character by what 
men think or imagine about it. 

For, on this last point, it is at once evident that human 
time-consciousness is itself only one little, fitful, and fragment- 
ary series of happenings in the time-series of the Being of the 
World. The total series represented by oo 1? oo 2 , oo 3 . . . oo n 
includes the series which is the so-called " stream of con- 
sciousness " I know as my Self. And it is equally kind and 
ready to afford its fostering embrace, with you and with all 
other streams of consciousness. To recur, then, to the illus- 
tration already employed : suppose that on account of com- 
plicated differences in relations, the trans-subjective series 
0i, 2 , S . . . n (Object), is mentally represented by me 
as a series E x , E 2 , E 3 . . . E n {Ego), and is, in a different 
way mentally represented by you as the series, A l9 A 2 , A 3 . . . 
A n (Alter) ; then all the series gone through by and E and 
A, and all the intermediate series in which the " complicated 
differences of relations " amongst these three beings consist, 
are alike included in the series oo 1? oo 2 , oo 3 . . . oo n . In- 
deed, the time in which the actual transactions of the object 
take place, and in which your and my mental representations 
of its transactions take place, is alike the world's time. Our 
mental representations add nothing to and take nothing away 
from the character of this time ; their existence or their 
cessation can only serve to increase or diminish the richness 
of the known content of the world's Being " in time." 

In some such way as the foregoing must a system of meta- 
physics which is true to the facts of cognitive consciousness 
validate that knowledge of selves and of things upon which 
the plain man's convictions and the scientific assumptions 



200 A THEORY OF REALITY 

of all ages insist, as respects the application of the category 
of time to reality. Rightly understood, only this conception 
gives an ontology which is to be accepted and defended 
against all the attacks of philosophical scepticism and of 
theological dogmatism or mysticism. For both the extreme 
of scepticism and the extreme of mysticism, in their denial 
of an actual trans-subjective time-series " in which " all 
Reality exists, cut away at the roots the entire growth of 
man's cognitive experience. Realities that are not " in time " 
are not knowable or conceivable, are in no way to be dis- 
tinguished from non-realities. A System of Reality, a real 
World or Cosmos, that is not existent " in time " is not 
knowable or conceivable : for the many beings whose changes 
of state and relation, as they fall under universal laws and 
ideal forms, constitute the system, must be united both for 
thought and for existence in actual reciprocity under the 
category of time. 

Doubly futile is the effort to discover a history or any 
principles of development belonging to a World that does not 
actually exist in time. That conception which dominates 
all modern science and in its false and mistaken as well as in 
its true and well-taken applications, throws floods of light 
upon our intellectual treatment of the facts of experience — 
the conception of " Evolution " — is emptied of all significance 
when separated from the category of time. The human mind 
can maintain no valid cognition of reality — no cognition at 
all in any fit meaning of this word — without maintaining 
the trans-subjective applicability of the time-concept. 

" But if twenty millions of summers are stored in the sunlight still, 
We are far from the noon of man, there is time for the race to grow." 

Without taking this concept in good faith we cannot even 
believe in our own reality ; much less can we ground this 
reality in any world that is external to the individual's 
" stream of consciousness." Nay : this very stream is not 



TL\LE 201 

to be called ••stream."' or "line/' ;; or a life, " or "grow t'a." 
is not to be treated genetically or examined scientifically, 
without self-consciousness, inemory. in:^g:n;.:i:n. reasoning. 
etc.; and all these psychical processes, or aspects of the 
conscious mind, implicate the incontestable validity of the 
tirae-conc c^c. This is as true :: Rip Van Winkle, when 
awakening from his long and dreamless site:, as it is :d the 
astronomer when eagerly watching a transit of V-^nns. In 
every conception of the Self the applicability of the category 
of time to a reality that is nor wholly measured by the pres- 
ent existence of the conceiving activity is implicate in an 
inextricable manner. 

From this main position, which, on the one hand, admits 
the relativity of all hnman time-consciousness and, ::: the 
other, maintains the actuality of a tin.T-ST:i-rS as belonging tc 
the life of the World, we are not to be driven by any form of 
mysticism, — no matter on what abstractions :: negations 
this mysticism may be founded. H: t is no more incom- 

\tSbli tl R* lit than -e Tim-. >.\7.v. Beiation. ani 

Time d Sj e -. are all forms : : : gniti d : : so fundamental 
a character as to lay valid claim to have their ground in the 
very nature of reality. Ana "to be in time" is no more 
mysterious for the entire World of Reality than it is for that 
little fragment of reality we call oursci~es. For, strictly 
speaking, liscussions about the * ; unendingness " of time, 
the possibility of conceiving of an absolute beginning in 
time, the •• eternal now * of the divine Mind, etc . have noth- 
ing to do either with the nature or with the validity :: this 
category. Everybody knows perfectly well what it is for the 
Self to be - in time/ r and equally well for the entire World 
of Being to be in time, quite irrespective of any negative or 
positive position in answer to these mooted questions. Un- 
doubtedly, it has been the frequent practice of metaphysics 
and of theology to juggle wiah the time-concept, whenever 
the proposal is made :; fiaii its application to the Infinite, 



202 A THEOEY OF REALITY 

the Absolute, etc. But the lesson to be drawn from both the 
successes and the failures of all these dialectical efforts is not at 
all that which is consecrated by the Kantian " Critique." Their 
legitimate result is not the affirmation of the transcendental 
ideality, or the negation of the trans-subjective reality of the 
time-concept. It may very well enough be a lesson as to the 
impossibility of conceiving of the Infinite (or the Absolute) 
by a process of prolonging in time, or of heaping up in the 
"now" of a single grasp of consciousness, a monstrous num- 
ber of otherwise disparate mental images. But such discus- 
sions have no bearing upon the nature and validity of the 
time-concept. 

It will be of some help, however, in promoting a general 
theory of this category, to consider briefly certain difficulties 
— such as those mentioned above — into which the mind is 
plunged by a metaphysics that disregards the facts of cog- 
nitive experience and deals chiefly with abstractions. For 
example, the conception of "infinite" — meaning by this, un- 
ending — time, is, so far as such a conception has any bear- 
ing on a theory of reality, intelligible both as a positive and 
a negative conception. That is to say, it is positively a con- 
ception corresponding perfectly to the conception of any par- 
ticular finite time ; any portion of infinite time is measurable 
and comparable with other times, is perpetually divisible into 
present, past, and future, and is capable of being "filled" 
with events occurring in a series and enduring through 
a longer or shorter amount of time. These are the " marks " 
which the mind necessarily employs in its effort to frame 
even the most empty and abstract picture of time. In the 
actual constructive processes which are responsible for this 
picture, we are conscious of ourselves passing through a cer- 
tain series of states that are representative of the processes 
which would go on in this infinite extension of the world's 
time. Thus this " world's time " is, both subjectively and 
trans-subjectively considered, no whit altered in its make-up, 



TIME 203 

because the mind is trying to conceive of it as unending. 
But the qualification of being infinite, or unending, is rep- 
resentable only in negative fashion. Infinite and unend- 
ing time is not to be thought of as measured or definitely 
compared, for quantity, with any of the particular times of 
our experience with realities : its present is, indeed, always the 
movable and content-full -now" which forms the mind's only 
possible conception of present time : but its past and its 
future are not to be conceived of as finished; and, although 
not a moment of it can be imagined as unfilled with the 
being of the World, it is not to be imagined as ever all 
filled by a possible multiplication in the extension, time- 
wise, of the world's transactions. In a word, quoad time, 
infinite or unending time is, positively considered, just like 
any other time ; but its infiniteness or unendingness negates 
every effort of the mind to conceive it as limited or ended. 
The conception answering to the noun is positive ; the con- 
ception which aims to answer the adjective results only in 
negation. But this is equally true of every combination 
which can be made between all manner of nouns and adjec- 
tives like the adjectives "infinite" and " znzending." 

Not more serious are objections against the trans-subjec- 
tive application of the time-concept which take the form of 
maintaining the impossibility of conceiving an absolute begin- 
ning in time. Even the argument of the profound Kant in 
his " First Conflict of the Transcendental Ideas ? ' scarcely 
deserves to be considered as a serious objection. 1 ' ; In an 
empty time," says this philosopher. " it is impossible that any 
thing should take its beginning, because of such a time no 
part possesses any condition as to existence rather than non- 
existence, which condition could distinguish that part from 
any other (whether produced by itself or through another 

1 See the "Critique of Pure Keason," Mulder's translation, p. 345, and compare 
remarks on this "Antinomy" in Adickes, and in the author's "Philosophy of 
.Knowledge," pp. 412 f. 



204 A THEORY OF REALITY 

cause). Hence, though many a series of things may take its 
beginning in the world, the world itself can have no begin- 
ning, and in reference to time past is infinite." Now this 
argument, so far as it has any cogency whatever, tends only 
to show the impossibility of mentally picturing an " absolute 
beginning" of the entire complex of world-happenings — an 
<x> 2 , which has been preceded by no co 1? with which it may 
be compared as sequent in time and dependent upon it as 
upon its Ground. That "in the world" many series of hap- 
penings may take their rise, Kant is careful to admit; for 
the denial of this would involve the denial of the a priori 
nature of the time-concept. All such beginnings, however, 
are relative, both to the mind of the knower and also to 
one another in the unending world-process. 

But, in fact, the limitation of our ability to conceive of a 
world as springing into being at any instant, which instant 
could then be marked off as the absolute " beginning of 
time," is twofold in character. And the Kantian statement 
of this alleged antinomy, confuses the two and misapplies 
both. For by the very term " World " must be understood 
a time-series of events, already inaugurated according to some 
definite ideas of form and order and final purposes, — an 
actual system of beings already interacting in time. Cer- 
tainly such a system cannot be conceived of as really 
springing out of nothing. As an idea or series of mental 
representations, it is the product of man's active imagina- 
tion and intellect functioning in time. And as actual, it 
must be regarded as the product of some cause or system 
of causes, in order that it may originate at all. Granted the 
hypothesis of such a cause — we will say, for the sake of the 
argument, of the will and reason of God the Creator — and 
the category of time, as such, opposes no objection whatever 
to the world's time-series having an actual beginning. On the 
other hand, if I may think of the beginning of the world as a 
"moment" in the Life of the Everlasting World-Ground, 



TIME 205 

then there is no longer any insuperable objection to my 
conceiving of this world as having a beginning " in time." 
For now, the time in which the world's time begins is some 
particular time in the Life of that World-Ground, whom 
faith knows as God the Creator. Permission thus to think 
of the world and of the World-Ground can neither be given 
nor denied in the name of the category of time alone. But 
the whole problem as to a " beginning in time " is raised to be 
considered anew, upon far higher and obscurer grounds. 
Let it be remembered, however, that in this way the trans- 
subjective reality of the category of time is not in the least 
degree impaired or altered ; but the point of its application is 
transferred from a world-process that is conceived of as 
beginning in time to the life of a Self that is, indeed, in 
time, without having any beginning in time. In this way 
both the confidence with which the time-concept is satisfied, 
and the inability to make this concept wholly void, may be 
regarded as affording proof for the metaphysical position we 
are defending. In other words, if I regard the world's time 
as a mere series of happenings in things, I may picture to 
myself the beginning of this series in time. But if I regard 
the nature of the ultimate World-Ground, I find that It 
cannot be conceived of as having a beginning in time. In 
neither case, however, can the trans-subjective application 
of the time-concept be voided. And this double fact, which 
is a fact both of positive conviction and also of impotency, 
requires the view that Time is a necessary form of Reality. 

It is scarcely worth while to dwell long over that mysticism of 
theology which thinks to exalt man's conceptions or minister 
to his practical religious needs by speaking of the divine 
consciousness as an " eternal now." Understood as a legiti- 
mate but figurative representation, it is, so far as the charac- 
ter of the time-concept is concerned, just as true of man as 
it is of God. With every time-consciousness it is, of course, 
always now. This is the truth — already referred to — which 



206 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Lotze and others have rather unhappily expressed by speak- 
ing of the present time as alone having reality ; for the past 
has been, the future will be ; and neither past nor future truly 
is. But when the attempt is made to understand this phrase 
as a denial that the Being of God is " in time," with a view 
to save the Absolute from the limitations of time, then such 
a compound phrase as the " eternal now " represents one of the 
cheapest and most ineffectual forms of mysticism. No meta- 
physical theory can afford to disregard the claims of mystic- 
ism ; but what we object to is a mysticism that contents itself 
with compounding phrases out of irreconcilable and contradic- 
tory elements. Let the truth be acknowledged frankly : If 
God does not exist in time, then man can never know Him, — 
that He is, nor what He is, nor anything about Him. Nor 
can any effort of intellect or imagination make " existence 
in time " mean anything essentially different, quoad time, for 
God, from what it means for man. But, here again, the ques- 
tion whether existence in time is conceivable for a being that 
is entitled to be called " Absolute " enlarges our theoretical 
difficulties and lifts them all upon decidedly higher and 
broader grounds. For the critical survey and mastery of 
these grounds, we do not in the least smooth our path by 
introducing a vague mysticism into the discussion of the 
category of time. 

And now the way has been opened to that provisional 
answer to the problem of this chapter which will, we believe, 
best serve a harmonious and satisfying system of metaphysics. 
The problem, it will be remembered is this : The " being in 
time," which we and all other selves and all things have, can- 
not itself be wholly due to the constitution of the individual's 
time-consciousness. This time-consciousness, although rela- 
tive to each individual mind's peculiar constitution and devel- 
opment, is also, in all its essential characteristics, common to 
all human minds. Otherwise no human life or human devel- 
opment, no science, or social intercourse, or moral character, 



TBiE 207 

could exist. Moreover, the very nature of knowledge forbids 
that the ground of this common human time-consciousness 
should be found wholly in the subjective structure of the race. 
The world of non-human things, not only is known as in 
time, but it actually is in time ; that is to say, a trans-sub- 
jective series of happenings — infinite in content at every 
moment of time — is presupposed in all man's cognitive 
experience. Our individual times, and the times of the race, 
are included in the world's time. And that very principle of 
relativity, which is often urged in favor of the pure subject- 
ivity of time, is itself an indisputable evidence of its trans-sub- 
jective applicability. The system of reality actually is a 
time-series which, although its content at each "now" of 
its existence, may be symbolized by oo , must, as a series, be 
symbolized by such an objective arrangement of its content as 
oc i, oc 2, oo 3, etc., — through unending time ( oo n ). Or. if we 
feel impelled, for valid reasons, to distinguish between that 
all-inclusive system of reality we call the ' ; world," and the 
so-called " World-Ground,'' we can only substitute a similar 
form of conception for the unending Life of this World-Ground. 
God's Being then becomes ah unending time-series, every 
"now" of which is infinitely rich in content. But all this 
brings again before us the final question which arises in the 
discussion of this metaphysical problem : What sort of a Being 
must the World have in order that it may satisfy the conditions 
imposed upon it by this category of Time? 

There are two important but subordinate classes of ques- 
tions which are customarily employed to complicate the 
answer given to the metaphysical problem just proposed. 
These questions concern, first, the propriety of any distinction 
between the world, as a total system of realities, and the 
World-Ground ; and further, the manner in which this dis- 
tinction is to be made (natura naturata and natura naturans; 
the world and God, etc.). The second class of questions con- 
cerns itself with the relations in which the two beings thus 



208 A THEORY OF REALITY 

distinguished must be supposed to stand to each other (Creator 
and created ; The One and its multiform " differentiations " ; 
God and the world as his " manifestation" or " revelation "). 
Now we wish for the present as much as possible without 
prejudicing a future consideration of such questions to put 
them all on one side. Whether we distinguish, as belong- 
ing to one sphere of reality, between God and the world, or 
distinguish them not, and however we picture the relation 
between the two spheres distinguished, our present problem 
is unchanged. What nature must Reality have in accordance 
with the inescapable conditions of human time-consciousness ? 
To this question only one answer seems possible, or even intel- 
ligible : The nature of reality must be that of an absolute Self. 
Really to be " in time " is to exist as a Self knows itself to 
exist. Really to be in the all-inclusive world's time is to be 
an infinite and absolute Life like that, time-wise, which every 
self knows itself to be. Only with this hypothesis can those 
two aspects of the time problem which are ever before the 
metaphysician be treated in a reconciling way. These are the 
reality of time as a constitutional form of the functioning of 
the knower, of the cognitive self ; and the reality of time as a 
trans-subjective series inclusive of all events, both of those in 
the consciousness of the knower and of those in the world of 
external things. These two aspects — the subjective and the 
trans-subjective — are completely reconciled only by that 
theory of reality which regards all concrete existences as hav- 
ing their time-series in the unending Life of a Self. No other 
theory, therefore, unites the subjective series and the, to us, 
trans-subjective series, in the Unity of one World existent in 
time. 

To accept that mechanical and external view which regards 
the happenings of so-called nature as stamping themselves 
" time-wise," in a blurred fashion, upon the sensitive paper of 
the human mind, is to contradict all the testimony of psy- 
chology, and to subvert all the analysis of philosophy, with 



TIME 209 

respect to the genesis and development of man's consciousness 
of time. Such realism is shattered into fragments by a few 
sturdy blows from the critical student of this category. But 
to regard the genesis and development of time-consciousness 
as purely subjective, as an affair of the constitution and 
activity of the human mind alone, is to render knowledge 
impossible, and to separate man from the world of things. 
It is to render science a dream constructed out of a possible 
series of imaginary happenings rather than a progressive 
study of the truth of the world's history. Such idealism is 
evaporated by the heat of our fierce workaday sun, and by the 
added heat of its own friction with the ethical and religious 
interests of life. 

In illustration and further proof of the view we are advocat- 
ing let it be considered what the mind is doing when it pictures 
the events of the whole world of beings as actually happening 
in one and the same time-series. The mind is doing simply 
this : it is trying to take the interior point of view held by 
the world's time-consciousness. But what really is this point 
of view ? It is the point of view which would be held by the 
mind, if its limited grasp of consciousness were only adequate 
to include all the happenings that go on in the world's time. 
It is the point of view of a being that has a time-conscious- 
ness like our own, yet infinitely greater and profounder in its 
grasp. This is what would be seen from its point of view, if 
all these happenings were brought within the grasp of an 
infinite and all-inclusive consciousness. The "now" that is, 
the " then-that-was," and the " then-which-will-be," have no 
reality, and never can get any reality, as applied to the entire 
system of happenings, unless some conscious Self be conceived 
of as functioning under the category of time. Our conception 
of absolute and universal time is man's best, yet feeble and in- 
adequate representation of the Divine time-consciousness. 

In vain does the mind strive to rid itself of the demand to 
conceive of the existence of the world in time, under the form 

14 



210 A THEORY OF REALITY 

of a Life of other conscious Mind, functioning after the 
analogy of its own life. The student of biological evolution 
draws an enticing picture of a vast and indefinitely extended 
world-process which antedated the existence of any form of 
sentient life. He aims to tell you what was " then " so many 
myriads of millions of years ago. But surely this little stream 
of consciousness does not claim to contain all this as content 
of memory. The biologist is only making a fairly plausible 
but wofully fragmentary picture of what there was then to 
know, if some knower had been upon the scene. His finite 
act of imagination in the " now " of his little consciousness, 
gives the needed unity of an imagined past time to the 
imagined elements. But what was necessary in order to 
make really existent u in time " the world that " then " was ? 
For time is no force, external to things or immanent in things, 
which binds them into a unity. Only a conscious self, now 
existent, can create the actual " now " which brings many 
things into the unity of one time. Only a conscious Self, 
then existent, could have done the same service for things at 
any moment of that past time. That which we do so fit- 
fully and imperfectly for a fragment of the world's events, 
the World must somehow do perfectly and constantly for it- 
self, if it is going to be known as existent " now " in time. 
And what is true of the ever-changing present, is true of the 
past, and of the future, of the world's stream of events. We 
can conceive of them as in time now past, only as we imagine 
them to be remembered by some possible mind. Time past, 
actual and not imaginary, is representable by us only in 
terms of memory. All these happenings in the world, which 
neither we nor other men have known or can know, are 
conceived of as possible objects of memory for the Absolute 
Self. The only reality which the world's past time can have 
must be found in the truth that the World somehow remem- 
bers itself. 

But it is not hard to conjecture what thoughts are passing 



TIME 211 

through the minds of readers unwilling to agree with our 
reconciling theory. You are talking, say they, about the 
characteristics of that time in which the world's events must 
be known, if known at all ; you are forgetting that meta- 
physics deals only with reality, and that the metaphysics 
of time discusses the question, What is it actually to be in 
time ? Why may not much, nay almost all, of the world's 
happenings never have been known ; and yet they may have 
happened all the same ; and that " in time " ? To be known in 
time, and really " to be in time," are surely not one and the 
same thing. But here again is that foolish and inconsiderate 
kind of realism which forgets that every form of time — 
present, past, and future — is actually a form of conscious 
mental life ; and that without such mental life, all the words 
and concepts employed to describe time-consciousness are 
absolutely devoid of meaning. If one does not mean anything 
conceivable when one speaks of " time " as actually applicable 
to the world of realities, one might as well inquire what it is 
to be really " in abracadabra " as really to be " in time." 

Notice, then, that all the phrases which popular usage, or 
scientific theory, or transcendental metaphysics employs virtu- 
ally consider objective time after the analogy of the life of a Self. 
By them all, time is regarded as somehow real ; and yet not 
as a real thing. It is vaguely thought of as a " medium " of 
things ; but the actuality of it as a " medium " is conceivable 
only as an actual succession of conscious states. To bring 
into existence the " now," that is for me, I must grasp 
together into the unity of consciousness, the otherwise dis- 
parate " momenta " of my own life ; then I actually am 
" now," and my object has an actual present existence for me. 
The same thing is true of the " now " that is for you. How 
a universal " now " can come into existence, an absolute time 
that gives the time-consciousness to all finite selves according 
to the relations in which they, respectively, stand to it, — this 
is a problem which admits of no other solution than the one 



212 A THEORY OF REALITY 

we have proposed ; such a " now " must be the construct of 
the active consciousness of an Absolute Self. And the com- 
plete application of this category to all the conceivable objects 
that make up the present complex of the world's being can be 
secured only if the grasp of this time-consciousness includes 
all these objects within itself. Differently expressed, it may 
be said : The world's absolute and universal time is the actual 
succession of states in the all-comprehending Life of God. 
If, then, one is willing to substitute for the mathematical 
symbol of oo, the conception of the Life of an Absolute Self, 
one may validate both the popular and the scientific assump- 
tion of an absolute time in which all the events of the world 
are ever taking place. This conception is that of a series 
which must be conceived of time-wise and yet involves the 
denial of a beginning or end to itself; a series that, from 
every now, or oo i, reaches both backward and forward to oo n . 
The transcendental reality of time is the all-comprehending 
Life of an Absolute Self. 

As to objections which arise against the conception of an 
Absolute Self or against the possibility of conceiving of an 
absolute Being as existing " in time," this is not the place 
for a detailed consideration. It is, indeed, well to respect 
the hesitation of Augustine, who says: "What then is Time ? 
If no one asks me, I know ; if I wish to explain it to one that 
asketh, I know not ; " and the modesty of Professor Sidg- 
wick's declaration : " The relation of the Absolute to time is 
one of the things I do not understand." But if we not only 
accept Mr. Hodgson's escape from a paradox which is only 
apparent to the refuge offered by the conception of an in- 
finite intelligence ; but also carry our critical analysis to a 
point where we obtain insight into the ideal and yet trans- 
subjective nature of time-consciousness, then we may dis- 
cover that the contradictions and antinomies, customarily 
alleged, do not exist at all. Our time-consciousness is, 
indeed, limited ; its present grasp, its recall of memory, and 



TIME 213 

its anticipatory seizures of the future, are all feeble and 
defective enough. But " really to be in time " is not per se 
to be finite and limited. And surely the conception symbol- 
ized by a simple oo is no grander or more absolute than that 
symbolized by a series, oo l9 go 2 , go 3 , . . . oo n . Just as 
surely is all human thought abouc Reality made grander and 
more worthy to stand, when for this symbol, oo , there is sub- 
stituted the conception of the Life of an Absolute Self. At 
any rate, only this conception seems able to validate the 
category of time in that trans-subjective and universal ap- 
plication of it which the development of human knowledge 
presupposes, demands, and perpetually confirms. 



CHAPTER IX 

SPACE AND MOTION 

The philosopher Schopenhauer emphasizes the necessity 
of Space as a principle of differentiation (principium individ- 
uations) which rules over all the objects of man's sensu- 
ous perception. Human experience through the senses is not, 
indeed, to be trusted as giving the truth of reality, the intui- 
tion of the Thing-in-itself ; but its space-form is universal 
and unquestioned as the work of intellect within the sphere 
of phenomena. Or, to use the Kantian expression, all "phe- 
nomenal realities " are cognizable only as they fall under 
this universal principle of differentiation. Now, since a 
critical metaphysics can maintain neither the crudely realis- 
tic nor the unqualifiedly subjective views of the origin and 
the applicability of our space-concepts, some satisfactory 
mode of reconciling the truth of both these views must be 
sought. And we discover a certain clue which it seems 
desirable to follow with the search-light of reflective philos- 
ophy while considering space as such a universal and funda- 
mental principle of differentiation. If it were permissible 
at once to express the thought in a tentative way, it would 
seem that the following claim might be made : It is only 
when space is operative as an active and controlling prin- 
ciple both subjective and trans-subjective that "the other," 
and many "others," existing in the unity of a System of 
Reality, can be known or even rendered conceivable to man. 

Now undoubtedly the temptation to consider space as 
something far different from an active principle of any sort 



SPACE AND MOTION 215 

is very great. The temptation is even essentially connected 
with, and strongly fostered by, the very experience out of 
which emerge all our workaday conceptions of spatial 
qualities and spatial relations. The nature of this experi- 
ence makes it much more difficult for the unreflecting mind 
to recognize the truth that space is not an entity, or a purely 
passive and formal principle of things, than is the case with 
the twin category of time. For the impressive feature of 
our time-consciousness, on the one hand, is the immediate 
awareness of change in the content of experience. There- 
fore time itself is figuratively said to move, to flee, to be 
"on the wing." And our own whole Self is describable, 
from its time-wise point of view, as a " stream of conscious- 
ness. " So closely connected is the time-concept with the 
experience of change that we need considerable reflection 
even to correct the meaning for reality of these figures of 
speech enough to substitute for them the more appropriate 
figures of speech. It is really we ourselves, and the things 
we know, that are changing "in time" — as though time 
itself were for us, and for things, some sort of an unchang- 
ing medium. But, on the contrary, with space we are only 
the more confirmed, the more we reflect, in the figurative 
view that it does not move or change ; space plainly appears 
to every mind as a motionless, unchanging, and therefore 
internally inactive " medium, " in which things are set. We 
and other things move " in space. " But no changes of posi- 
tion, or of size, or of shape, which things may undergo in 
this medium, have any effect upon space itself ; neither has 
the space, in which they are set, any power to effect changes 
in things. There it is — enveloping and surrounding man 
and all other beings, as a sort of medium of existence, to be 
sure, homogeneous, yet without possessing any of the quali- 
fications which he and things possess ; except that it is in- 
finitely extended in three dimensions, as all things are 
extended in three dimensions to a limited extent. 



216 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Of course, no prolonged attempt at reflection is needed in 
order to convince the mind that all such modes of speaking 
are figurative and unfit to reveal the final truths as to the real 
nature of the category of Space. Yet the very tenacity with 
which these figures of speech are employed, and the difficulty 
with which they are interpreted into a satisfactory theory of 
reality, are significant facts in the history of metaphysical 
speculation. 

There is no other so-called category which has been so 
much discussed, with so little net result, as the category of 
space. Here the practical implications and the theoretical 
conclusions seem to be brought into the sharpest contrast, if 
not into obvious contradiction. In popular uses, space is the 
most objective and realistic of all human conceptions; yet it 
has been most commonly resolved by ontological systems into 
a purely subjective form, a mere idea of the image-making 
faculty. Space is the necessary presupposition of all ethi- 
cal and social intercourse between men; yet it has been 
most often declared to be totally irrelevant to the reality of 
the Self. The cheapest forms of unanalytic, common-sense 
realism have taken this conception for granted, as a kind of 
copying off, by the mind, of something actually existent; but 
the most subtle and acutely analytic forms of psychological 
idealism have been as yet unable to trace satisfactorily its 
mental genesis and development. Space, considered as 
" appearance, " seems visible and tangible, as time is not; 
but in answer to the question, What then really is space ? 
one can only fall back on mysteries that lie much more re- 
mote from human powers of envisagement than does the 
mystery of time. And for this same reason, while one may 
venture to form a definite mental picture of what it is for 
God to exist in time, one hesitates even to raise the simi- 
lar question in one's reflection over the nature of the space- 
concept. Thus it comes about that that which men are 
inclined at first to believe is really an object of immediate 



SPACE AND MOTION ~u 

and indubitable experience, and which is undoubtedly the 

necessary presupposition of all their grossest, most material 
experiences, has somehow the thinnest and most evanescent 
roots in the depths of Absolute Being. Ask me what Time is. 
and I can respond : "Look to yourself and see : for that which 
your conscious life is will give to you the envisagement of 
a real being in time." But ask me what Space is. and I can 
only say: "It is the form in which the show of things takes 
place ; but what it really is. I cannot say in terms which 
admit of direct envisagement by self-conscious experience.' 3 
It has already been suggested, however, that the clue to 
a method of harmonizing the valid claims of the realistic and 
the subjective views of the category of space may be discov- 
ered by considering space as a principle of differentiation. 
Without space, "otherness" could not be, nor any multi- 
plicity of thing-existences in the unity of one World. [Let 
not the reader be offended by an uncouthness of terms which 
may help to make a profound and difficult truth somewhat 
more comprehensible.] In this our common world of sen- 
suous experience, here am I. and there are You: and near 
by here, or over there, are myriads and myriads of other 
selves and things. But to me here. — wherever I may be, — 
you there, — wherever you may be. — are always a thing; 
and I am always, of necessity, known to yon, in the same 
way. as a thing external to you. All those "other*' beings, 
which are really other than both of us, and yet are, for both 
of us. really the same, become known in the same way. It 
is space which makes possible this inknite differentiation 
wr "externalizing" of each to every "other") of real beings. 
all existing in the unity of one "World. Thus is made actual 
a system of beings that are external to one another and yet 
are related in a form of ideal Unity: this function must be 
assigned to Space whatever view be taken as to the genesis. 
development, and validity, of our space-perceptions and 
space-concept 



218 A THEORY OF REALITY 

The general conception of Space as a principle of dif- 
ferentiation — whether purely subjective or also trans-sub- 
jective — admits of illustration in two directions. First: 
without space-form we cannot distinguish the Self from the 
not-self, or from " the other " than self, as being external to 
the self. Space is not, indeed, the only form under which 
this so fundamental distinction takes place ; but it is one of 
the several most essential or categorical of such forms. I 
am unable to identify myself with you, because neither the 
time-form nor the content of the two streams of conscious- 
ness coincides. Your time-form is not my time-form ; and 
our separate times do not constitute one continuous and con- 
nected stream of consciousness. Moreover, the content of 
the two streams is markedly differentiated, for each one of 
us, by the distinction between self-consciousness and thing- 
consciousness. But this essential differentiation is itself 
accomplished only under the category of space. This state- 
ment can be verified as a psychological fact by showing how 
the consciousness of self and the knowledge of a world of 
things grow together in every human mind, in a sort of re- 
ciprocal dependence. Only as these two beings — namely, 
I that perceive or think about the thing, and the Thing 
which I perceive or think about — become more definitely 
set off from each other can the knowledge of either be devel- 
oped. But this very process of "externalizing" is always 
^n instance under the general principle of space-form. Or 
to state the truth of cognitive experience in a somewhat 
more abstract and metaphysical way : Consciousness of Self 
and World-consciousness develop together in a sort of re- 
ciprocal dependence ; and this reciprocal dependence is essen- 
tially connected with the progressive recognition of that 
category which makes the world "other than," or "external 
to," the self. We say "other than" or "external to;"' — 
for although there are, so to speak, other ways in which, 
and relations by which, each man distinguishes his self here 



SPACE AND MOTION 219 

and that world there, yet the way that looks "space-wise," 
and the spatial relation of ''•'externality," is essential to the 
distinction. Every object-thing, whatever else in qualities 
or relations or activities it may be or may accomplish, is 
always given as external to the Self. 

It is universally admitted, both as viewed from the point 
taken by the most naive realism and also from that held by 
the advocate of the doctrine of the transcendental ideality of 
space, that "things" are to be known only as external and 
extended. This necessity which attaches itself to all human 
cognition of things, the realism of the totally unreflecting 
mind considers to be explained by the affirmation that things- 
in-themselves, or things totally independent of mind, are 
actually external and extended. From this unreflecting 
point of view our mental representations of things as in 
space are a kind of copying-off process, dependent for its 
validity upon the extra-mental existence of beings resem- 
bling — space-wise — the system of mental representations. 
But the Kantian doctrine accounts for this necessity by re- 
ferring it wholly to the mental constitution; although Kant 
himself is repeatedly caught in an explicit or concealed 
reference to some kind of a trans-subjective cause of this 
form of mental representation. Both extremes of view agree 
that all things known by man, whether perceived or only 
imagined, must be known u in Space." Both, however, 
either vacillate or deny, when the question is raised as to 
the applicability of the space-concept to the Self. It is 
rather customary to deny that the mind, or soul, or Ego, 
exists in space; — or, at any rate, it is held that we do 
not, all of us (that is, both body and mind), come under the 
necessity of submission to space-form, as all things mani- 
festly do. 

Every form of the negative position toward the applica- 
bility of the space-concept to the Self demands something 
more than an unreflecting assent. It is necessary to ask, 



220 A THEORY OF REALITY 

What is meant when I am told : — "To be sure, you know 
all things, including me and other human beings, only under 
the form of space ; but you, yourself, are not known to your- 
self as existing ' in space. ' " Let us take this appeal for a 
meaning to the actual facts of our common experience. If, 
now, by the word "self" is understood what not only the 
child but also every adult understands for all practical pur- 
poses, it is certainly not true that I do not know myself to 
exist in space. For the essential thing in every popular 
conception of the Self is just this, that when one is asked 
a question as to one's whereabouts, one can lay one's hand 
on one's heart, or one's head, and respond: "Here am I." 
Indeed, this " Here-am-I " is so essential a part of the answer 
which we feel ourselves compelled to give, even when we are 
asked to define our most essential nature, that no man can 
easily refrain from bringing it to the very front in evidence. 
In moments when living is full of some special form of emo- 
tion or of action, it is most emphatically true that experience 
compels every man to emphasize, in his conception of the 
self, some particular part of his bodily organism. The con- 
nection between the Ego and this particular part of the 
organism is ordinarily expressed in one of two ways ; either 
the local, or the instrumental. I know myself as either 
here, immanent and suffering or doing, in the organ; or I 
am just outside of the organ, and am using it as my instru- 
ment. 1 am suffering pain in my heart, or my heart is giv- 
ing me pain ; I am feeling the action in my moving arm, or 
I am acting upon something else with my arm. In either 
form of speech some kind of a relation which is covered 
under the general conception of Space is applied to the feel- 
ing, perceiving, and willing Self. In a general way, the 
differentiating and externalizing function of the category of 
space seems as truly implied in these as in any other of our 
cognitive experiences. 

It is, of course, at once to be remembered that such facts 



SPACE AND MOTIOX 221 

of knowledge as those just mentioned concern the psycho- 
physical self j — the man as a kind of two-sided unity, or as 
having a dual nature, both body and mind. To the mind 
itself, to the pure Ego, it is customary to affirm that spatial 
conceptions are in no respects applicable. And into what 
absurdities and foolish contradictions our thinking is plunged 
by the attempt to apply, in detail, conceptions of spatial 
qualities and spatial relations to minds, there is scarcely need 
to mention. Every thing, for example, is not only "out of" 
every other, but the distance at which it is out, or the dis- 
tance between the two things, is measurable or calculable as 
so much, and no more. Even for the atom, the phenomena 
of isomerism of position seem to make necessary all the 
spatial qualifications of larger things. But how far is the 
Ego from the organ when, for example, the nerve-tract con- 
necting that particular organ with the sensory-motor centres 
of the brain has been severed ? Nor do we escape the per- 
plexity and the contradictions if, while admitting that exten- 
sion in space is inapplicable to minds, the attempt is made 
to vindicate for them position in space. It is a certain 
vacillation upon this matter which is one of the causes that 
makes Lotze's view of the nature and applicability of this 
category confusing. 1 But how avoid vacillation, and yet 
make clear the meaning of "the localization of cerebral 
function," or connect, in whatever terms, the stream of 
consciousness as a whole with the molecular constitution 
and physico-chemical behavior of the brain ? But, on the 
other hand, shall we be forced into the absurdities of a 
"figurate conception" (to borrow Hegel's somewhat scornful 
phrase) which virtually regards the faculties in particular, 
or the Ego in general, as moving about from brain-centre to 
brain-centre, after the fashion of birds hopping from twig to 
twig in the top of some tree ? 

1 See his " Metaphysic," Book II., chapter i. : " Of the Subjectivity of our Per- 
ception of Space " — a chapter which seems to us the most severe and suggestive 
criticism of this category which has ever been written. 



222 A THEORY OF REALITY 

It is, to a certain large extent, such difficulties as the 
foregoing which drive some students of metaphysics to the 
extremes of subjectivism in their treatment of the category 
of Space. It is owing to the excessive fear, at least in part, 
of such forms of " figurate conception " that a writer like 
Paulsen feels himself justified in ruthlessly forcing a path 
through the thickets of a sceptical epistemology, and then 
upward to the cold and barren heights of a mystical Ideal- 
ism. Scant comfort is it to the mind which insists upon 
thinking out its bearings clearly, that, when alone on those 
heights, it may indulge an emotional faith in maintaining 
still some kind of a relation to some kind of a Reality. 
Physics and psychology, indeed, combine to furnish their 
warrant to Paulsen 1 when he declares that idealism, from 
Plato to Berkeley, concludes: "The spatial world cannot be 
the absolute reality ; extension and divisibility are not com- 
patible with absolute reality." Experience may also war- 
rant him in affirming : " We may imagine beings whose 
sense-organs and percepts are different from ours, and who 
therefore have different forms of arranging the elements." 
But to say, " We can imagine an intellect for which neither 
the 'before ' and 'after,' nor the 'outside ' and 'by the side 
of,' have any meaning," 2 comes perilously near upsetting 
the very subjectivism — and that in its most tenable form — 
which it is the design of all such declarations to establish. 
For, on the contrary, my imagination and my intellect must 
represent all its objects with a meaning for " before " and 
"after," and for "outside" and "by the side of." " Ausser- 
einander und nebeneinander seize ich meine Gregenstande." 
But when still later 3 Paulsen plumply declares that " Space, 
Time, and the Categories, are as much products of evolution 
as are eyes, ears, and brains," he has destroyed all possi- 
bility, for himself and for every other thinker, of pursuing in 
a legitimate and fruitful way the very business of systematic 

1 Introduction to Philosophy, p. 348. 2 Ibid., p. 350. 3 Ibid., p. 413. 



SPACE AXD MOTION 223 

metaphysics. The essential and unchanging forms of cogni- 
tion have been reduced to the rank of being the (must we not 
say. fortuitous) offspring of a thought so complex, so vague 
and shifty, as yet so full of internal contradictions and so 
much the child of the Zeitgeist, that it can itself ill claim 
title to be called one of the latest born of the categories. 
What is there about this word "evolution'' which mates it 
so mighty as to down all the other conceptions of the human 
understanding ? And when the waters of experience in 
which our growing powers are bathed become somewhat 
murky, why proceed at once to pour out the living child of 
reality. " with the bath " ? 

We note, however, that two assumptions, which are by 
no means self-evident, strengthen those difficulties of imagi- 
nation upon which a sceptical subjectivism chiefly relies in 
its treatment of the category of space. These are, first, the 
assumption that what is essential about the space-concept as 
a form of mental representation is to have things presented 
to perception as a sort of smooth, continuous extension ; and, 
second, the further assumption that the relation between this 
form of mental representation itself and the u absolute real- 
ity ! ' can be properly conceived of only as a certain copying- 
oil process. Xow neither of these two assumptions is true; 
and we shall soon show that they are not true, by pointing 
out positively, and with some detail, what are the facts of 
cognition, and its trustworthy assumptions. Let it be no- 
ticed now, however, that if space be expounded as some sort 
of an active differentiating principle — both subjective and 
trans-subjective, both a form of mental life and a form of 
that Reality which manifests itself, in all knowledge, to 
man — then many of the customary difficulties vanish. More- 
over, the essential nature and, if we may so speak, the moral 
and spiritual value of the category of Space, then reveal 
themselves. For — to return to the point of standing from 
which the discussions proceeded — space certainly has this 



k: 



224: A THEORY OF REALITY 

function of differentiation in the genesis and growth of 
human knowledge. It has also all the supreme value which 
such a function implies. Considered as exercising this 
function, it does really get application to the entire life of 
every self or self-like being. 

Undoubtedly we may, if we choose, regard the Self as 
pretty purely a mental activity. It is I that think and feel 
and will. 1 Regarded as the subject of these activities, as 
activities merely, I am not to be spoken of as external to the 
activities ; nor are the objects — whether they are states of 
myself or "thing-objects" — to be spoken of as external to 
me. Even much less am I or they spread out, over so many 
square feet or cubic metres of space. But considered thus 
merely (that is, as pure unrelated reality of thinking, feeling, 
and willing subject) I am not a Self actually existent among 
other selves and things, in the unity of one World. And 
it is impossible to conceive of my standing in manifold rela- 
tions to beings " other " than myself without the introduc- 
tion of some principle of differentiation which shall render 
them external rather than interior to me, as are my own 
conscious states regarded as mere states. 

In insisting upon this function of space in the form of 
" externalizing " "the other" for every conscious Self, we 
are not making anew the old and vain attempt to devise a 
deduction of this category. It is not our point of conten- 
tion simply that the human mind is unable to do without 
some principle of differentiation ; and that by chance, as it 
were, nature, in its manifold processes of evolution, has hit 
upon this particular principle. Neither is it intended to 
smuggle in an explanation only apparent, of the category 
under an ambiguous use of the word " external. " The space- 
concept must be received as one of the categories; and, 
neither disregarding the use of figurative terms for express- 

1 In this connection see chapters iii. and iv. in the author's " Philosophy of 

Mind." 



SPACE AND MOTION 225 

ing this concept, nor insisting upon giving to these terms 
a literal but foolish interpretation, will help us to discover 
the essential service in all human knowledge which this 
category performs. But is not this the most striking thing 
about this service : It is under space-form that all other 
selves and all other things are differentiated, for each self, 
from itself ? And to the extent of making such a differ- 
entiation actual, the category of Space applies also to the 
Self. When 1 know any other than myself, as an "other," 
then I set that other out of me, as in a system of beings, all 
united in one Space. 

The essential nature of that function of differentiation 
which is performed by the space-concept for all man's 
knowledge of things — their qualities, changes, and rela- 
tions — is too obvious to need more than a brief mention. 
Every particular being, in order even to be known as a 
"Thing," must possess either perceived or imagined spatial 
qualities. This becomes true of every element, or part, of 
each thing, just so soon as our experience or our theoretical 
interests have determined how we will choose to resolve it 
into its elements, or parts. For example, the tree over 
there is external not only to me, but also to other trees 
which are in the same neighborhood, and it has a certain 
extension — " in space. " But its different parts, however I 
choose to construct them by processes of mental discrimina- 
tion, — top and bottom, right-hand side and left-hand side, 
or trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, and buds, — are all ex- 
ternal to one another, and each has its own extension in 
space. And if its parts are still further differentiated by 
analyzing it into their minutest tangible or visible elements, 
the same thing remains true of these elements. Even when 
imagination transcends the limits of the visible and the tan- 
gible, — no matter how much these limits are first extended 
by instrumental methods, — each element must be conceived 

of as differentiated space-wise from every other. Those 

15 



226 A THEORY OF REALITY 

mathematical points, which a certain theory of the constitu- 
tion of matter strives to regard as immaterial centres of force, 
must be conceived of, and described, as here and there, set 
side by side, or so far distant from each other, etc. Posi- 
tive void of extension cannot be imagined without invoking 
the differentiating function of the category of Space. 

Now the more obvious and fundamental, if not all the pos- 
sible changes in things, consist of different directions and 
velocities of the whole mass, or of the parts, or of the ele- 
ments, of those things. Actual motion is the great and the 
universal fact in the being and the life of every physical 
thing. Possibility of movement is the undoubted factor in 
all our conceptions of what things can do. What can the 
world of physical beings do ? It can move ; and it does 
move. Movement is the form of change which all such 
beings share in common. Without stopping to examine the 
ingenious attempts of philosophy, like that of Trendelen- 
burg 1 for example, to make "motion" the sole universal 
category, or "vehicle" of all the categories, we cannot refuse 
to speculate upon the significance, for the nature of reality, 
of such permanent and universal facts of man's experience 
with things. "He who knows not motion," said Aristotle, 
" knows not Nature. " But even the customary and unsatisfac- 
tory definition of motion as "a change of place" emphasizes 
the differentiation effected in the world of things by the 
principle called Space. There are indefinitely many places, 
actual and conceivable, in which things may be; and the 
change of things from one to another of those places can only 
be accomplished on condition that the places shall somehow 
be kept separate while the things remain the same. This 
introduces to our thought the effective and separating nature 

1 See his " Logische Untersuchungen," the entire Band I. : " Weil die Beweg- 
ung eine in sich einfache Thatigkeit ist, die sich nur erzeugen, nicht zerlegen 
lasst, wird sie zugleich die letzte sein, die aus keiner andern stammt, und wird 
darum auch aus sich erkannt werden ; weil sie die letzte ist, wird sie allgemein 
sein und jeder Thatigkeit zum Grunde liegen," etc. 



SPACE AND MOTION 



'2-2: 



;: = ■;;.:->. The hire rrentiating tin :ti :n :: this :ate g:ry mast 
be invoked in order to understand our experience with both 

the inter: z-r ana the external na:Tin:en:s 01 things. 



Ail 



many objective relations, which things may 
another, such as those of kinship and differ- 

:ir5. :: :: :b :s: en: in the same or in diver- 

rneration. the relations :: rosititn ana raation 






ns: 



ortant, 



W J 



And as ::r a: 



mcntaan so-ea. 



l 



tiati 



Thus far St: ace ha? been 
a:ti~e principle that :::::.: 
any knowledge either :: Se 
gether ::: :. unitary system. 
;-' ::■: :' :•: '. :': a -; ■_ a a a '-: ' 

railing attention to that 
of this category, wh 
::ns:ioa:sness empl:ys. : a. .". ~h::h regarah 
of an inactive entity, :r a pure stati :n a: 
— ::h far the sa::ing :: things. X:~. i: 
snmeieney :: this hatter ~ie~. "hen t 
_:::.-.-. "hieh ~ e iesired tt sho~, YT; 



iani 


:s. 


and :h; - 


:es. — not to 


e m a 


fcj ; 


s. — the s: 


:en:es ~n::h 


i- " 




i systems :. 


- .\ . 5 . : .. i i. s 






the iifieren- 


'v o: 


5] 


pace. H:^ 


- :.ii : nantitv 


. m . ~: 


r 


and iiieas ■: 


: unity :r :: 


re* 

- — 


- ^- 


h^ 


mae :: : i n : i : i : 


. _ _ . - 

._ _ _■* ■ 


— 
rn 




gh it — ::a- : n 


iish: 


:S 


- : meaning 


necessary to 




- - 


Things, as 


■ existing ::- 


\ - 






■s ':-.-: s la a 


A: 


id 


yet the lis 


:ussion began 


ersis 


tteo 


at "zrarat: 


. - - ,- .. ._,. _.■ . v . ■• 



. linr \j\J\Ji 



as kn:~iedge :: 



228 A THEORY OF REALITY 

is "other" in man's known world, is external to each man's 
self; ail things are, and change, and stand related (one and 
others), only as they comply with the terms of this function 
of the space-concept. Even if a man considers his own body 
entirely, or any member of it, not excepting the brain, as 
belonging to the sphere of the not-seU, still this differentia- 
ting function of the space-concept must be invoked. 

But is space properly spoken of, as though it were an 
active principle? To this question scientific psychology 
gives no hesitating or equivocal answer. It demonstrates 
beyond doubt that, considered from the psychological point of 
view, space is most properly and precisely just that. Sub- 
jectively regarded, space, in fact, is the construct of an 
active and discriminating Self. Like all other constructs of 
this same agent, it begins in darkness and confusion, grows 
into clearness and precision of mental representation — dif- 
ferently for different individuals, and attains its highest 
development in that systematic doctrine of spatial qualities 
and spatial relations which the physical sciences so success- 
fully employ. As for the so-called "space-concept," it is 
like every other form of a concept in respect of the mental 
faculties which it requires for its formation. As mere con- 
cept, it bears an abstract and formal character, and depends 
upon the comprehensiveness and degree of success which 
different individuals meet in their attempts to think out the 
meanings of their experience. But it is a " category " ; be- 
cause it is, at any rate, a necessary and universal form of 
the human mental representation of things. The world of 
things, and of selves as related to things, is known by all 
men to exist in space ; and this world cannot be known to 
exist otherwise than as existent in space. Moreover, with 
the more correct and profound recognition of the meaning 
of this category, we deny the statement of Paulsen, that 
any world of different beings can even be imagined, or 
thought, as not coming under space-form. 



SPACE AND MOTION 229 

In spite of the concentration of experimental, introspec- 
tive, and theoretical effort upon the psychology of space, the 
subject remains in an incomplete and unsatisfactory condi- 
tion. There is comparatively little difficulty in arriving at 
agreement concerning all the principal problems in the de- 
scriptive history of the time-consciousness. But with the 
problems in the genesis and development of space-conscious- 
ness the case is not so. Students of psychology are still 
striving to answer the poetical inquiry : — 

"Who can tell what a baby thinks ? 

What of the cradle-roof, that flies 



O n 



Forward and backward through the air ? 

And the constantly increasing throng of incompetent inves- 
tigators only seems to emphasize the words of Diderot: "To 
prepare and question one born blind, would not have been 
unworthy of the combined talents of Newton, Descartes, 
Leibnitz, and Locke. " Yet we cannot sympathize at all 
with the position taken by the majority of writers on the 
metaphysics of space, from Kant to Mr. Bradley, 1 the latter 
of whom declares : " We have nothing to do here with the 
psychological origin of the perception " (that is, of space). 
On the contrary, the study of the genesis and development 
of man's perception and conception of space is the only way 
to approach the important metaphysical problems involved. 
Although even the following brief account of the points 
made good, in our judgment, by modern psychology will 
contain certain opinions that other students will dispute, 
the agreement on which we can count is necessary and suffi- 
cient to establish and maintain our central metaphysical 
tenet. 

The most primitive " stuff. "' from which space-conscious- 
ness takes its genesis, consists of certain obscure and com- 

1 Appearance and Reality, p. 35. 



230 A THEORY OF REALITY 

plex conscious modifications called "sensations of motion." 
Originally these are not perceptions of motion, or of things 
in motion; nor can they be regarded as set by the active 
mind into the framework of an already constructed space. 
On account, however, of the constitution of the psycho-phys- 
ical organism and in accordance with its inherited functions, 
these complex sensations are of immense importance in the 
development of the Self, and of its knowledge of Things. 
The child comes, all alive — writhing, kicking, screaming 
— into a world that is also alive to its very core. These 
most primitive sensations of motion are thus both the prod- 
ucts of self -initiated movements of the organism, and also of 
the passively received movements of things, as they change 
their relations to this organism and so stimulate it in mani- 
fold different ways. This primitive experience is full of 
pain and also of pleasure; it has both its risks and its re- 
wards. Thus the modifications of sense-consciousness which 
the active self constantly undergoes by virtue of its neces- 
sary commerce with active things, become both the stimuli 
to its appropriate modes of action and the indieice of the 
changing relations in which things stand to the self. That 
is to say, sensations of motion serve as " local signs. " 

The image-making and discriminating consciousness must 
be invoked in order to give system, and a regulated value 
and orderly arrangement, to this primitive horde of sensa- 
tion-processes. The contemporaneous existence of two or 
more groups of sensations in consciousness, even if they are 
of that peculiarly differentiated character which belongs to 
different sensation-complexes of motion, does not of itself 
necessitate the perception of space. This twofoldness will 
not alone warrant the mind either in placing the sensation- 
complexes "side by side," or in attributing them succes- 
sively to the same object that has moved from one place to 
another. Psychology cannot, indeed, derive the compulsio7i 
to experience things in space from any amount of mere dif- 



SPACE AXD MOTION 231 

ferences in the content of simultaneous or successive sense- 
consciousnesses. It can in this way only account for the clues 
made use of by the mind in perfecting its experience under 
spatial form. Further explanation of the development of 
the space-consciousness requires two other assumptions. 
One of these involves the work of that same image-making 
and discriminating intellect to which reference has just been 
made. The other implies some native tendency or impulse, 
amounting to a compulsion to make just this peculiar kind 
of an arrangement of different "moments" of sense-con- 
sciousness. In these two assumptions we recognize again the 
Self as a constructive and differentiating principle, which acts 
according to its own nature in its apprehension of a World of 
th ings. 

It is not necessary to follow further the history of the 
development of space-consciousness as studied from the sub- 
jective or purely psychological point of view. Apparently 
the statement of Teichmiiller 1 is true: " Spatiality is, there- 
fore, so far as experience goes, only an arrangement of touch 
and sight-sensations." But even if we accept the conten- 
tion of those who, like James and Ward, hold that all sensa- 
tions have a sort of vague primitive "bigness," we do not 
escape the necessity for believing in a process of "the 
integration or synthesis of these proximately elementary 
presentations which are called perceptions, intuitions, sen- 
sory-motor reactions, and the like." "Arrangement," in the 
one case, implies an active principle in the form of a mind ; 
and not less so do the words "integration" and "syn- 
thesis." Nor is this view of the psychological genesis and 
development of space-consciousness changed as we watch 
the process which results in that wonderful cliremption of 
the objective world into the Self and external Things. Al- 
though this process involves, according to Volkmann, 2 two 

1 Die wirkliche und die scheinbare Welt, p. 247 f. 

2 Lehrbuch der Psychologie, II. p. 136 (3d ed.). 



232 A THEORY OF REALITY 

constitutive marks, — namely, projection into an outside 
space and becoming conscious of dependency in having the 
sensation, — it involves no less the differentiating activity, 
space-wise, of the thinking, feeling, and willing mind. It 
is indeed, — to use the phrase of this author — " the deter- 
mining of the other by the without ; " but it is even more 
obviously a determining that the other shall be without, by 
act of that which knows itself as within. 

Mere projection and arrangement of sensation-complexes 
into more stable combinations, under space-form, do not 
give us the cognition of a real thing. Every " Thing " is 
something much more than a mere spatial arrangement of 
the sensation-complexes, with "their escort of images, " etc. ; 
every thing has already been proved to be a concrete realiza- 
tion of all the categories. Subjectively regarded, however, 
every concrete reality receives the space -form which it 
comes to possess, through an active and attentive synthesis 
of the perceiving mind. 

It is customary for those who regard space as a purely 
subjective principle to explain its universal application to 
the objects of our cognitive experience by considering it as 
a constitutional form of mental representation. Thus, to 
represent all things to themselves, as spatially extended and 
spatially related, belongs to the very nature of the mind of 
mankind. Space, like all the other categories, is a priori. 
But the character and the clearness of every individual's 
space-concepts, considered as abstractions and as capable of 
scientific application, may well enough be matters of an in- 
definite differentiation, in dependence on education, native 
talents, and even trivial circumstances. That the mental 
representation of things in space is, in some sort, native 
to all normal human minds, no one can doubt. But is this 
admission enough in itself to account for the universal and 
necessary objectivity of space — in the form in which the 
experience of man with things exhibits such objectivity as 



SPACE A^T> MOTION 233 

universal and necessary': ^~o lo not by any means believe 

Far let our brief study :: the 5 :- railed " objective validity" 
:: the space-concent begin bv trying to ^: clear il>as of 
— hat ::;:h rrlinary ana s:lrn:ia: knowledge iemauas :: any 
attempt a: explanation. That is indeed a cheat way :f vir- 
tually dismissing the entire problem which concludes the 
run subjectivity 01 the mtegtry ;: space ir:m tne siuVee- 

n : :, F:~ i: is /:a-t z'.is :,'..: -.-i.:'. :■ :r ■'..:.:': .."::, :y ::. * oa: .a:" 
r-:pr-:-sen:.i:i: :s ■:■/ sij.:-:. '.:.:. >. c :\ in a i: ly t:> t.i-:t an ir.f. ..:-: 
r.\. a:-;:" // /• -/ h: : ;' ; a .* : :: ..."/.:.:. : .".:';; i't-sah"' r.-::Js to ':-: 

An analysis •:: tne :' Jective experier:e of man wi:h space 
shows that the following particular truths are inextricably 
interwoven wi:h all knowledge of things and of the self in 
relation to things. To leny these truths is to destroy the 
integrity of the very structure 01 human knowledge. First: 
the spatial perceptions and c : n : : : as of different individ- 
uals vary in dependence upon changes in attention, imagi- 
nation, degree :: liscrimination. etc.; they are. therefore. 
und:ubtedly subjective, in the mist solirsistic meaning cf 
that word. Every individual has his peculiarities in re- 
st ect o: the sra:e-::rm c: mental representation. Second: 
Certain features of the spatial perceptions and conceptions 
of all men are alike, and the laws of the development of 
these perceptions and conceptions are the same for all men. 
In some undoubted meaning of the words, saaee-iorm is the 
universal and necessary form of the mental rerresentatiin 
:: things Vy man. Third: The changes in the spatial per- 
a:n:etti:ns of men are. indeed ^relative;" but 
this very relativity itself iemands an :-xplanati:n that :an 
be found only in actual changes of relations among the con- 
:rete realities of the world. Even the relativity ;: this 
form of mental representation implicates a trans-subjective 



234 A THEORY OF REALITY 

ground. Moreover, the differentiating function, so to speak, 
of this trans-subjective ground must be adequate to the task 
of accounting for the infinitely great variety which human 
spatial perceptions and conceptions actually display, in the 
development of the individual and of the race. For, fourth : 
Motion is a most undoubted and universal fact in all man's 
experience with things. It is by the continuous realization 
of this fact, under a great variety of forms and laws, that 
all physical evolution takes place. Every form of physical 
science either resolves itself into formulas expressive of this 
fact, or else it is rendered dream-like and ghostly by the 
denial of the trans -subjective reality of this fact. 

It follows, then, — to state the conclusion in technical 
language, — that neither the solipsistic theory of space, nor 
the theory which maintains the merely transcendental ideal- 
ity of space, fully satisfies the plain facts of man's cognitive 
experience. On the contrary, some sort of a trans-subjective 
reality must be accorded to this category, conceived of as an 
active and universal principle of differentiation. 

The enforcement of our metaphysical view of the space- 
concept may be effectively secured by use of symbols similar 
to those employed in discussing the category of time. Let 
it be supposed that A and B are subjects of some phenome- 
non of motion in a body called X. Two men, for example, 
are standing together upon a street-corner and are watching 
a horse and wagon driving toward them ; or two astronomers 
are observing the transit of the same planet from widely 
different points of view. Now, in the first case, strictly 
speaking, the series of objective consciousness which consti- 
tutes the perception of motion in the mind of A will not 
correspond to the series which constitutes the perception of 
motion in the mind of B. On account, however, of a suffi- 
ciently close resemblance in the content of the object, X, 
the perceptions of the two observers are of the same object, 
which is changing in the same way its relations to them, "in 



SPACE AND MOTION 235 

space." Thus, although one stream of consciousness flows 
in the series A l9 A 2 , A s , . . . A n , and the other in the 
series Bi, B 2 , B 3 . . . B n , both are described in terms of 
X l9 X 2 , X s . . . A" n — that is, as the same changes in the 
space-relations of the same X to the two different selves, A 
and B. For the full explanation of the experience of the 
two observers, it is therefore necessary to take into account, 
first the subjective peculiarities of both A and B; these 
chiefly explain why the series Ai, etc., differs from the 
series Bi, etc. One man could not see so clearly as the 
other ; or his attention and interest flagged ; or the slight 
difference in points of view of the two, differenced their per- 
ceptions, etc. But, second; that both A and B see the 
object X "in space" at all, and that both see it "in mo- 
tion " at all, may be accounted for by the vague, a priori 
doctrine of space, which can simply say : It is the nature of 
A and B so to do. Still there remains something more to 
be accounted for. And, third; that both A and B pass 
through a series of space-perceptions which admits of being 
described as the series of objective, spatial changes, X^ X 2 , 
X 3 — X n cannot be explained without reference to the nature 
and activity of X. That is to say, the differentiating func- 
tion of a being ivhich is neither A nor B, but ivhich is X, must 
be invoked to account for the objective series of space-percep- 
tions in which both A and B substantially agree. 

In the other case — namely, that of two astronomers watch- 
ing the transit of the same planet from two different points 
of view — the same argument holds good a fortiori. No such 
cognitive experience can be explained without assuming a 
trans-subjective ground for the variations evoked in the dif- 
ferent mental representations of space. In this case the 
two series of the subjective order differ in a much more 
important way than in the familiar case previously consid- 
ered. The series A h A 2 , A s . . . A n is now considered as 
a mere succession of perceptions of motion, quite unlike the 



286 A THEORY OF REALITY 

series B t , B 2 , B 3 . . . B n . To affirm that both these men- 
tal series are, objectively regarded, motions of the same 
planet — or, in other words, that the true objective series 
for both A and B has its ground in the same X l5 X 2 , X z 
. . . X n — ■ requires a complex scientific knowledge, which 
can only be made valid by a large amount of previous ex- 
pert observation and of mathematical calculation. This im- 
pression of the trans-subjective character of the observed 
transaction (if you will, of its perfectly superhuman and 
immovable ground in the reality of the system of things) is 
greatly heightened by considering the success which the 
physical sciences have in their calculated predictions re- 
garding the future motions and future positions of the ob- 
jects with which they deal. Where, then, shall the cause for 
the marked differences between the two mental series of the 
observers A and B, which are both of them of necessity re- 
ferred to the same object, the planet, be found ? It is par- 
tially, no doubt, in the difference between the two minds, A 
and B; for, as is well known, even with the best of training 
and the strictest of attention, no two observers see precisely 
the same phenomena of motion when observing the same 
physical event. But in this case such an explanation is 
relatively insignificant. The really significant and impor- 
tant cause of the difference in the series of mental represen- 
tations of motion of the same object in space is found in a 
difference, in the spatial relations to this object, of the two 
different observers. 

Now, in all such cases as the foregoing, the metaphysics 
of either a solipsistic or a mystical idealism is quite futile 
to satisfy the demands of the understanding for an explana- 
tion of man's experience with things. Such forms of ideal- 
ism cannot even describe this experience without internal 
and destructive contradictions. That the grounds for the 
detailed differences in the space-perceptions and experiences 
of men, with the motion of external objects are to be found 



SPACE AND MOTION 237 

solely in the individual subject (are solipsistic: solus-ipse) is 
an opinion more absurd and untenable than the most crude 
and naive form of realism. But the resolution of the com- 
mon elements that analysis detects amid all these differ- 
ences, into a mere Idea that has its realization only in a 
purely human form of representation, and so affords no ex- 
planation of the differences themselves, is an empty and 
barren abstraction. In the nature of the realities themselves 
must be placed, in part, the grounds ivhy all men represent 
them in space-form, and yet with an infinite variety of differ- 
ence. Nay more : the ultimate grounds of the differences 
themselves are to be found neither in mental caprice, nor 
merely in the laws of mental representation. They are 
themselves necessarily conceived of as trans-subjective, as 
not lying solely in the perceiving and conceiving mind of 
man. In this its persuasion, the workaday and the scien- 
tific realism of the multitude of men is perfectly invincible ; 
as invincible as it is weak and absurd when it regards the 
spatial qualities and spatial relations of the things mentally 
represented, as independent of the activity of the mind thus 
representing them ; or when it regards the mental repre- 
sentation itself as a species of photography, which repro- 
duces the passive and statical but extra-mental extension 
and externality of things. 

The necessity of making similar assumptions for the 
explanation of all man's experience with things considered 
as extended and movable in space, is enforced by a further 
analysis of the same examples. In the case of any two ob- 
servers watching the same object from the same point of 
view, there would arise not simply a substantial agreement 
in the series of perceptions of motion, but also in those 
changes which accompany and constitute the mental repre- 
sentation of the size of objects. Every adult knows, without 
the assistance of experimental psychology, that the apparent 
size — or extension in space — of objects varies with their 



238 A THEORY OF REALITY 

distance. In the case of the two men watching the horse 
and wagon approaching them, the series of perceptions of 
both would be that of an object increasing its apparent size, 
although known on grounds of previous experience to be the 
same object, and so, of course, not increasing its real size. 
That is, the appearance in the minds of A and B would be 
of x, X, X, . . . X; although it would be known that 
each object in this series was actually the same X. In the 
case, however, of the astronomers watching the same planet 
from widely different points of view, the apparent changes 
noted would not involve changes of size, but only changes of 
relation to a number of other objects — other planets and 
stars, the zenith, the horizon, etc. Now these changes, 
although to a certain extent dependent upon purely subjec- 
tive conditions, are nevertheless not to be accounted for 
without reference to trans-subjective grounds. 

Man's objective experience with things, as having spatial 
qualities and as coming under spatial relations, is all of a 
kind similar to the examples just given. The metaphysical 
account of this experience, as an essential part of human 
knowledge, requires, therefore, some such view as the follow- 
ing : Things are self -differentiating in their actual relations to 
one another, — space-wise. They are not simply made by our 
form of mental representation to be, each one, for every other, 
another than itself; the principle of differentiation they pos- 
sess also in themselves. From the purely subjective or psy- 
chological point of view, we can trace the genesis and devel- 
opment of human spatial perceptions and conceptions ; and this 
investigation leads to the metaphysical conclusion : Space is 
in us ; and this is the reason why we perceive and conceive of 
all things as being in " space. " But the study of the physico- 
chemical sciences recalls us to the point of view in which re- 
mains standing the man of a naive and unreflecting realism. 
This study compels us to conclude that, in some true meaning 
of the words, after all, we and all things are actually in space. 



SPACE AND MOTION 239 

If, then, — as is admitted — space is a human form of 
perceiving and conceiving of things, yet both the general 
ground for all cases, and the special ground for every par- 
ticular case, of such perception or conception, must lie also 
in the nature of things. And if, once more, it is the essence 
of space to serve as a principle of differentiation, then the 
service of this principle must be rendered, so to speak, both 
to us and to things in their relations to us and to one an- 
other. The ultimate nature of man's mental representation 
of things, as in space-form, must lie in the differentiating 
activity of a Being that shall have control overman's mental 
representations and also over the actual being of things. 

That our metaphysical doctrine of space, as thus far de- 
veloped, satisfies the demands made by the physical and 
natural sciences in order to render their conceptions and dis- 
coveries valid for reality, becomes clear when it is consid- 
ered how these sciences treat both the relativity and the 
actuality of Motion in Space. The tendency of the most 
clear-sighted modern physics is to base all its abstract con- 
ceptions, principles, and demonstrations, upon observed facts 
of motion. We have already seen that this is what psychoid 
ogy indicates as the valid order of procedure and of life. 
The child actually begins his observations and his general- 
izations where the expert student of physics should begin. 
Both are warranted in beginning with facts of motion. This 
is the patent and the impressive thing in the world of spa- 
tial objects, — self, other selves, and things, — they are all 
moving. But movement as a datum of experience implies 
extension limited so as to give unity to the separate things, 
their relations, and their change, — "in space." Unity, 
relation, and change, are all implicit in every perception 
and conception of motion. When, for example, X. moves 

from a to b, along the line a- 5, it is necessarily considered 

as the same definitely limited X, which, beginning with a 
relation to the points a and b that implies coincidence with 



240 A THEORY OF REALITY 

one (a) and that also means distance in a given direction 
from the other (b), then proceeds to alter this relation. After 
X has moved, it is coincident with the point b and related 
to the point a as it formerly was to the point b. All this 
truth, we are wont to say, is implied in the perception or 
conception of motion. But only a very small part of all 
this is to be found explicit in the sensational flow of the 
stream of consciousness. For our sense-consciousness as- 
sures us, at most, only of a change in the content and local- 
ization of certain sensation -complexes, which have a sort of 
serial relation in time and a sufficient similarity in content 
to make them stand for the same X. 

That a series of sensation-complexes of motion may be 
produced otherwise than by actually moving X from a to b, 
— as, for example, by a skilful and rapid combination of the 
successive retinal images, or by successive stimulations of 
the same parts of the retina with objects that have different 
sensuous qualities — students of the physico-chemical sci- 
ences as well as students of psychology, know to be true. 
They know also perfectly well that all their theory of kine- 
matics, or phoronomics, as well as of statics, is a theory of 
relations. No body can be placed anywhere in space, with- 
out denning its relations to some one or more other bodies 
in space. And there is no actual movement, either to be 
observed or to be calculated, which must not have its direc- 
tion and velocity considered as related to some other moving 
or stationary body. Indeed, there is no actual known mo- 
tion which is not relative to a standing still ; and there is no 
actual standing still which is not relative to a possible mo- 
tion. So that "absolute" motion and "absolute" rest are 
alike impossible; or, at least, they are never actual in this 
world of things, as it is given to our minds to observe and to 
know it. When, therefore, physics makes use of the distinc- 
tion between the "apparent" and the "real" motion of any 
body, it is not meant to assert that the real motion is any 



SPACE AXD MOTION 241 

less relative than is the so-called apparent motion of the 
same body. Without some standard of comparison :: _ rh i:h 
amoving body may be brought, its real morion could never 
be made apparent : and the apparent motion, so far as physi- 
cal science does not deal with illusions and hallucinations, 
is precisely as reai. qy.:,id na:aion. as it is possible f or anv 
motion to be. F:r purposes :: theory or of the application 
of known laws, we may pnt ourselves by imagination ::.:: 
ideal points :: view, and then inquire how the movements, 
if actually taking place, would appear to an observer irom 
these points of view. This is what (he Gopernican theory did 
when i: hes :ri\ :- i the so-called "real" m:~7mrnts :: the 
rth around the sun. But in all its process of investiga- 
tion, in its liscovery ana ay ::li rati : n of the laws of motizn. 
ani e~e: :: th:se facts :t matian wh::h have n:t yet s\:o- 
mitted to generalizatins in the form of "laws.'' the s:ien:e 
of nhysirs -relieves in the trans-snb;'ective reality :: marian. 
In tins it is enenisina; its Legitimate right Bat it does 
car" i "t.^t: rhysieai science to teil as what it is r-:i.~:y to 
move in space; :r t: speculate as t: what is the real and 
ultimate nature :: that space " in which " all physical bodies 
have their existence and their motion. This, however, is 
precisely the problem which metaphysics attempts. 

Upon this firmiy established assumption that ail move- 
ment of physical objects, although relative and measurable 
only by refer e: ice a: points oi : :n arisen, is nevertheless a 
transaction in reality, the physical sciences build their com- 
plicated systems of theory, law. and generalize a facts of 
experience. The fulfilment of the expectations which thai: 
conclusions excite, and of the predictions which they make, 
constitutes an ever accumulating mass :t ewaenee in favor of 
the truth of this fundamental assumption. So far have they 
now gone in extending man's knowledge of that system of 
things, and of their changes in magnitude, number, and 
position, in the midst of which is his life ana ievelopment, 

16 



242 A THEORY OF REALITY 

that the main features of the picture may be regarded as 
complete. It is the picture of an infinite variety of be- 
ings, numerable and measurable, but constantly undergoing 
changes in the position they occupy with reference to others 
in the same system. And as this picture becomes more and 
more subjected to the test of man's enlarging cognitive ex- 
perience, it becomes more and more detailed and serviceable 
for purposes both of explanation and of forecast; but it is 
altered in no one of its essential characteristics. No being 
becomes known, no object is perceived or conceived of, that 
is not also numerable, measurable, and movable, within this 
system. Indeed, the growth of the physical sciences in ex- 
actness of theory, and in strictness of application, is a growth 
in power to number and to measure the internal and the ex- 
ternally related movements of the beings constituting this 
system. This growth — that is to say — all assumes, and it 
more and more convincingly proves, both the relativity and 
the trans-subjective reality of those principles which make 
possible such forms of dealing with the facts of motion. 
And among these principles is, in some sort, pre-eminent, 
the real existence and the qualities of space. 

The objective validity and the practical applicability of 
the molecular and the chemical sciences involves the same 
implication as to the Nature of Reality. In part, these in- 
ternal movements are such differentiations as can be made 
objects of knowledge by perception, through improved in- 
strumentation ; and, in part, they are movements which are 
inferred or imagined in order to explain observed changes. 
But they constitute a growing body of scientific generaliza- 
tions which is more and more conquering the most mysteri- 
ous fields of phenomena : while at the same time, it does not 
destroy or alter in the least the point of view which episte- 
mology and metaphysics must assume for their theoretical 
determinations of the nature of reality. For example, let 
the microscopist watch the motions of an amoeba as it 



SPACE AND MOTION 243 

changes its place in its surrounding medium, while at the 
same time changing its own contour in those ways so charac- 
teristic and as yet essentially mysterious. Here is an ob- 
ject: A, which while it moves from n to z, along a course 
that can be defined by no known combination of laws inde- 
pendently of its own "will," is the subject of internal mo- 
lecular changes that, up to the present date, bear the same 
unexplained character. The total phenomenon observed is 
thus described: — A, moving from n to z through indetermi- 
nate points, such as 0, p . . . x, y, while at the same time 
changing itself from An to Az in shape, in an equally inde- 
terminate manner. Or let the example be taken from the 
modern scientific account of the growth of some living cell. 
How marvellous the description which biology now affords 
of the movements which go on within the cell, and toward 
the cell from its surrounding pabulum; and which finally 
result in the evolution of a complex living organism — no 
less significant than the body of some human being ! Here, 
with an infinite complexity of motion, on the part of an in- 
definitely great number of elements originally entirely sep- 
arate, — in water, air, plants, animals, — changes itself 
through a planful series, into something unrecognizably 
different. By laying hold of these elements — a, 5, c, d to 
x 9 and even almost to 00, and by drawing them into itself ; 
by actively rearranging them, and then dividing itself into 
C and C" ; and by proliferation and segregation and aggre- 
gation, etc., of cells, — all forms of molecular movements, — 
the original C succeeds in becoming the system of organs 
known as B (a human body). Or, again, let the example be 
taken from the inferred and imagined atomic movements 
which modern chemistry needs in order to explain its ob- 
served phenomena. Let us suppose we have the series of 
hydrocarbons — Methane, CH 4 , Ethane, C 2 H 6 , Propane, C 3 H 8 
to deal with ; and that we are required to make clear to our- 
selves what changes in the molecules are necessary in order 



244 A THEORY OF REALITY 

to render such a series possible. Only if one is at liberty to 
suppose that intramolecular movements of the atoms, re- 
sulting in new arrangements of position, take place, can one 
give any intelligible account of such a series. 

Here again, however, there is as little need to multiply 
examples as in the case of the physics of masses whose 
movements may be made visible and tangible to the un- 
trained observer. The one fact which the physico-chemical 
sciences find everywhere is the fact of motion. The most 
far-reaching telescope reveals this fact; the most penetrat- 
ing microscope emphasizes the same fact. The heavenly 
bodies, however remote and unlike our own earth, are con- 
stantly changing their relations to one another in infinite 
space ; the atoms are doing the same thing within the in- 
definitely small spaces to which the laws of their relations 
confine their activities. All things and all elements of all 
things are ceaselessly on the move ; — that is, they are hold- 
ing a certain individual oneness and "otherness," and are 
undergoing continuous changes of relation, in accordance 
with the terms set to them by the differentiating principle 
of space. 

It is scarcely necessary again to criticize and to expose 
the essential unsatisfactoriness of either a crudely realistic, 
or a shallow and flippant idealistic metaphysics in its atti- 
tude toward the assumptions and discoveries of the modern 
physical sciences. Nor is there need to remind the more 
intelligent students of these sciences that, in their scientific 
language and forms of pictorial representation, they are not 
penetrating to the heart of reality. Of course, the sensuous 
picture which the individual observer frames, whether of 
the position, the motion, or the spatial qualities of things, 
is not a copy of what exists, — " in itself " just like this pic- 
ture, and entirely independent of the observer. Just as 
little need is there to insist that the entire science of spatial 
properties and of changes in space is relative; that all its 



SPACE AND MOTION 245 

measurements, formulas, and laws have reference only to 
objects which must always be considered with reference to 
one another. But, on the other hand, metaphysical dialec- 
tic will not easily convince the thoughtful student of the 
physical sciences that phenomena of motion, and the laws 
governing spatial properties and spatial relations of physical 
objects which have been built up through so many centuries 
on a basis of these phenomena, are without trans-subjective 
ground or significance as touching the nature of Reality. 
Neither the flippant subjectivism which compares Space to 
a " product of evolution " (of evolution that is not itself " in 
space " ?) nor the solemn, critical but agnostic Idealism of 
Kant, will render the student of science easy in his mind, 
if once he betakes himself to metaphysics. For he, as well 
as the "plain man," feels irresistibly that man's cognitive 
experience, as a race, is such as to demand that the known 
system of different things carry within itself the principle 
that can account for both its unity and its differences. The 
essential Being of the System must be conceived of as a 
Unity that can realize itself in an infinite number of beings 
differentiated actually each from every other. 

This conviction of the positive sciences reminds us that 
the unifying function of the category of space is not less 
obvious or essential than its differentiating function. Such, 
from the subjective point of view, is the valid conclusion of 
psychology and of an idealistic metaphysics. No external 
object (and here the word " external " includes the most in- 
terior parts of one's own body) can be known or imagined 
that is not brought under the unity of this one principle. 
Spatially considered, the world is one. Every particular 
thing becomes a known or an imagined part of this one 
World, only as it enters into relations with other particular 
things, in the unity of this one space. The mental act of 
representation is always a unifying act; it is an actual syn- 
thesis. Regarded also as a universal mental form of the 



246 A THEORY OF REALITY 

human mind, this category is a unifying function. By vir- 
tue of my representing all objects of experience in this way, 
common to me with all men, I am made one with the race. 
I can thus give and receive knowledge about things, — their 
size, shape, position, and movements, whether external or 
internal to the things themselves. I can thus both learn 
and teach a doctrine of the world of things, which shall 
have that formal unity and that practical value in enabling 
us to interpret and predict, which are essential to the very 
nature of science. 

Moreover — as has been implied in the last sentences of 
the preceding paragraph — the actual operation of the cate- 
gory of space in the world of real things is to exhibit them, 
as different and manifoldly situated and related, yet in the 
unity of a single system. In order to effect this actual uni- 
fication, space must be regarded as something other than a 
mere conception, or a mere form of human mental represen- 
tation. The significance of this demand has already been 
partially indicated by calling attention to the fact that men 
speak of Space as though it were an active principle; they 
conceive of it after the analogy of a doer, or an agent. But 
whatever they may mean by regarding all things as really 
being "in space," the phrase. takes note of their unity under 
this conception, as truly as of their differentiation. You 
and I are made " other " to each other by this principle ; but 
you and 1 are made " one " with each other, and with all 
other things, by the same principle. Were it not for the 
actual unifying effect of this principle, men could not live 
in one world, — separate beings, and yet having commerce 
with one another and with the same or with different things. 
For me, indeed, "here" means one position in space; and 
for you, "here " means another and different position. And 
yet we may point out to each other the same thing as in the 
same " there " ; we may meet each other here, in the same 
city ; or we may part from the same home to go yonder, in 



SPACE AND MOTION 247 

different directions. It is the category of Space as truly as 
the categories of Time and of Force, that renders all the 
myriad beings of human cognitive experience kindred within 
one World. 

This is perhaps the fittest connection in which briefly to 
notice certain problems connected with the criticism of the 
category of space. Some of these problems have quite un- 
warrantably increased the current stock of metaphysical 
puzzles. One of them concerns the so-called "infinity of 
space. " By this phrase it cannot properly be meant to ask, 
whether the mind of man can get by perception, or give to 
itself by imagination, either the empty or the filled-up picture 
of a world of things that has absolutely no limits to its exten- 
sion ; nor to inquire, whether we cannot somehow divest our- 
selves of all obligation to this category and so imagine, or 
think about a world of things that shall exist — many things 
in one world — without being " in space " at all. The true 
state of the case is as follows : Subjectively regarded, the 
infinity of space is provided for, when it has once for all 
been recognized that space is the universal and necessary 
mode of the human mental representation of a system of 
things, so differentiated as to be, one and another, external 
to each. Objectively regarded, the infinity of space is 
affirmed when it is recognized that, without limit or excep- 
tion (in-finis), all objects constituting this system of per- 
ceived and conceivable things exist in accordance with this 
principle. Thus, as a pictorial representation, I cannot 
know the infinity of space. As a conceptual form of dif- 
ferentiating the particular objects in the unity of the one 
system, I cannot fail to know the infinity of space. 

In somewhat the same way must we solve the puzzle as to 
the " infinite divisibility " of space. The mind cannot actu- 
ally perceive, or even picture, as going on without limit, 
the process of differentiating the particular beings of the 
world in respect to their spatial qualities and spatial rela- 



248 A THEORY OF REALITY 

tions. Neither can we mentally represent any particular 
being which shall realize this infinite divisibility as though 
it were already accomplished. I can, indeed, by a process 
of abstraction, think and reason about relations of position, 
merely as such. And this is done by every mind, whenever the 
fundamental postulate of geometry is apprehended : " Between 
any two points, anywhere situated in space, one, and only one, 
straight line can be drawn." On the other hand, the char- 
acter of space (and this means here the pure form of every 
mental representation of things), of itself, affords no reason 
why the process of dividing, and so of externalizing to one 
another, the parts of any thing, should ever come to an end. 
But this does not constitute, as Kant held, an antinomy 
which so affects the very nature of the category of space as 
to destroy all applicability of it to trans-subjective realities. 
This very antinomy, the rather, shows that space is a prin- 
ciple, both of differentiating and of unifying; and that any 
limit to the actual differentiation of things must come from 
some other characteristic (or motif) in Reality, than that 
representable under space-form. Who shall say, a priori 
and in the name of Space, how fine or how coarse God shall 
decide that things and their elements are, in fact, to be ? 

Once more, it confirms further our view of the real nature 
of space to reflect critically upon the discussion, by mathe- 
maticians and physicists, of space of more than three — of 
four, or of n dimensions. That all men's pictorial represen- 
tations of spatial qualities and spatial relations are actually 
three-dimensioned there can be no dispute and no doubt. 
Moreover, if we disregard certain alleged occult phenomena, 
which can scarcely yet lay claim to acceptance as facts, the 
conception of "three-dimensioned space " will serve to ex- 
plain all the facts of human experience with the external 
world. It is three-dimensioned space which all the applied 
sciences of physical objects both assume and also verify by 
their discoveries and their predictions. On the other hand, 



SPACE AND MOTION 249 

these sciences cannot deny a priori that Reality might differ- 
entiate, and still unify, its innumerable particular beings and 
elements, after a manner analogous to that which furnishes 
the ground for our mental representations of things in space, 
and yet in a more complex and varied way (a "fourth,*' or 
more, up to an n th dimension). If we should finally dis- 
cover facts of knowledge which required the assumption of 
"^-dimensioned " space, we might make it as a permissible 
hypothesis or even a valid theory; but this would not, of 
itself, in the least degree affect our present three-dimen- 
sioned form of mental representation ; and as little would it 
justify us in changing the metaphysics of the category of 
space. 

The ontological doctrine which is demanded by the facts 
of experience and by the conclusions of the positive sciences, 
may be summed up as follows : There belongs to the Being 
of the World a principle which actually differentiates this 
Being into a vast number of particular beings; and these 
particular beings are co-existent in time, and yet " external " 
each to every other ; but the same principle, at the same time, 
unites all these beings in a system of reciprocally deter- 
mined changes of relations to one another. This principle 
both assigns, at every moment of time, the place which each 
being assumes for itself within the one system ; and it also 
admits of a series of changes in the relations pertaining to 
such assignment. This same principle is also the ground of 
man's perceptions and conceptions of the spatial qualities 
and spatial relations of things. It is the trans -subjective 
cause of our mental representation of ourselves, and of all 
that is " other " to us, — both other selves, and other things 
— as in a space-system. From this it follows that, as a 
principle, it cannot possibly be wholly alien to us, who are 
the both active and passive subjects of this particular form 
of mental representation. Besides, the genesis and develop- 
ment of our space-perceptions and conceptions can be traced 



250 A THEORY OF REALITY 

in the history of the mind-life. For us, and for all men, 
this principle is a category; it is one of those universal and 
necessary forms of cognitive experience which act, on the 
one hand, as binding laws of the subjective development, 
and, on the other hand, indicate a grasp of the mind of man 
upon the nature of reality. 

Combining the results of this discussion of the category 
of Space with those reached by discussing the category of 
Time, the symbolism already adopted may be expanded as 
follows: — Let the Being of the World, as respects its infin- 
ite content, = oo . Then the Being of the World in Time 
may be represented by the series oo i, oo 2 , go 3 , etc., — through 
unending time, to oo n . But the Being of the World in Space 
provides that each "moment" in the series of oo shall in- 
clude a systematic ordering of the particular beings in such 
manner as to secure their "otherness," for all purposes of 
physical and social intercourse, yet within the unity of a 
single system. It provides that oo i shall be, and shall be 
known as being, = (a l9 fa, d, d x , e h /i, .. . . wi) ; oo 2 = (a 2 , 
fa, c 2 , d 2 , e 2 , f%, . . . n 2 ), etc. ; — in accordance with the 
particular being of a, and of all the other interdependently 
related beings, and with the nature of the " laws that govern " 
the changes of all their spatial qualities and spatial relations. 
This was seen to mean that the Being of the World is a Life, 
said to be in time because it is a series of states, each hav- 
ing an infinitely rich content belonging to it. 

But what, as bearing upon, and as contributing to, our 
Theory of Reality is the meaning of this symbolical way of 
conceiving of the category of Space ? . . . The answer to 
this question can only be partially indicated at present; no 
answer can ever be so satisfactory for the category of space 
as for the kindred category of time. But it may well be 
noted that the discussion of the space-concept, as related to 
all of man's experience, cannot avoid introducing other con- 
cepts — such as change, relation, and especially all those 



SPACE AND MOTION 251 

involved in the distinction of Self from other selves and 
from things. One conception, however, seems to be most 
essentially involved in all attempts to answer the inquiry : 
What is it really to be "in space ? " This is the conception 
of Force. Unless the world of concrete realities were a sys- 
tem of beings, with force in them — as we may say in a fig- 
urative way — no real existence in space could be, or could 
be known. Two considerations may for the present suffice 
to establish this contention. First: it is a common but ex- 
ceedingly significant phrase, to speak of all real things, as 
" occupying " a definable and measurable amount of space. 
One may not convert into each other offhand the two 
phrases — " really to be in space " and " to occupy space. " 
But both theoretically and practically, there is no real exis- 
tence in space which does not occupy that same space. To 
be actually posited or extended, spatially, a thing must seize 
and hold a certain definite position and extension. This it 
cannot do unless it be, somehow, possessed of the required 
forces. But second : if we examine anew the experience in 
which our space -concept is obtained and developed, and, by 
building on the truthfulness of which, the physical sciences 
rear and solidify their wonderful structures, we discover the 
same significant thought. The ultimate subjective fact is 
the perception, and then the conception, of Motion. The 
ultimate need to be satisfied by the category of space is 
the effecting of those regular and lawful performances in 
the World-system which science observes and conceives of 
as motions, trans-subjectively initiated and controlled. Mo- 
tion, however, is not something that can be defined or ac- 
counted for in terms of space merely. To illustrate this, 
suppose that the popular definition be accepted : Motion = 
" change of place." At once the question must be raised: 
Is this a change that is already accomplished, or a change that 
is in the process of accomplishment ? The answer must be : 
All actual motion is rather something changing its position, 



252 A THEORY OF REALITY 

or its relation in space to other things. Hence real motion 
= something moving; or motion = motion. But this fact of 
motion, which cannot even be defined in terms of space, 
when space is regarded as some mere thought-form or pas- 
sive framework of a world of active Reality (so-called 
"pure space"), is, as we shall see later, intelligible only as 
it implicates force. 

No actualization of the space-principle is, therefore, pos- 
sible, either from the point of view of its subjective origin 
or of its trans-subjective applicability, unless this principle 
itself is conceived of as the mode of the action of one all-dif- 
ferentiating and yet all-unifying Force. And surely here we 
have come close to the very heart of our conception of Self- 
hood, as giving us the essence of the Being and the Life of 
the World. The category of space must be referred for its 
trans-subjective ground to a World-Force, that arranges in 
a determinate way all the different beings of the world, in- 
cluding each Self whose pictorial representation of the spa- 
tial qualities and spatial relations of things is determined 
by this same Force. As a mental representation in us and 
in all men, its actuality implicates an orderly functioning, 
both to differentiate and to unite, of a Being that is not our- 
selves, and yet that includes our Self and all not-selves in 
the one system. Space is not simply our human form of 
mental representation; it is really the correlated form of 
the functioning of this World-Force. Further information 
as to the nature of this correlate cannot be obtained from 
an analysis merely of our space-consciousness and of its 
implicates. 



CHAPTER X 

FORCE AND CAUSATION 

The different conceptions thus far subjected to critical ex- 
amination have all been such as seem to admit of some kind 
of inductive proof by reference to our sensuous experience 
with things. All the qualities which the concrete realities of 
the world possess are either immediately knowable, or are 
capable of being imagined, in terms of sense-perception. 
Changes, too, are perceived by eye and hand and ear, and even 
by the less discriminating and objective of the senses. Al- 
though to relate is the constructive act of the intellect, and 
being related may be said, from the subjective point of view, 
to be imposed upon things by man's intellectual activity, yet 
the necessary conjunction of this activity with all the passive 
aspects of human sense-consciousness makes it proper to 
speak as though the mind became " immediately aware " of 
the relations that actually exist amongst things. Space and 
time, too, seem to furnish forms and laws, conformity and 
obedience to which are enforced by all our sensuous acquaint- 
ance with the World of real existences. In some sort, there- 
fore, Becoming and Change, Quality, Relation, Time, Space 
and Motion, may be said to be the more obvious and sen- 
suously apparent of the categories. 

But we can no longer suppress a momentous truth which 
has been slumbering just below the surface of all these more 
superficial of the categories. Indeed, this truth has seemed 
to arouse itself and lift up its head, at intervals, during all 
our previous discussion of the categories. Each one of them 



254 A THEORY OF REALITY 

has given token of the intimate presence of a yet more spirit- 
ual and profoundly influential conception. For example, it 
was found that qualities are neither known nor conceivable 
apart from something that is said to " have," or to " exercise," 
the qualities ; and this vague " something," when questioned 
gave back an unmistakable echo of a conception of force in re- 
serve, as it were, within the very depths of each particular 
being. Again, when becoming and the various forms of 
change were considered, it appeared that some active prin- 
ciple must always control the becoming, and thus account for 
the origin and the character of every particular change. This 
principle of a control of change hints at the same conception 
of force. Relations, to be sure, sometimes seem so calm, sta- 
tical, and impassive, that they, at least, would not suffer if all 
forms of the manifestation of force were removed from the 
world. But at once we are reminded that the mental act of 
establishing relations, whether by observation or by argument, 
is about the most energetic thing which a human will can ac- 
complish. Forceful, pre-eminent, is the mind that seizes and 
works out the most complex and subtle relations amongst the 
" stuffs " of its sensuous experience. And some objective re- 
lations unmistakably demand force for their establishment 
and their continuance or change. Such are all relations, for 
example, of tension, strain, attraction, repulsion, suspension, 
etc., in physics ; and all the ideal relations of cause and effect, 
means and end, etc. Moreover, since no actual relations are 
perfectly statical and unchanging, the presence of force must 
be recognized in the midst of them all. Finally, the con- 
ception of a differentiating and unifying force seemed neces- 
sary in order to complete the actualization of the categories of 
time and space. 

All this — to speak figuratively — ma} 7- be said to amount to 
this important truth : a dynamical view must be substituted for 
a merely statical view of the Being of Reality. Or rather, all 
the universal and necessary forms under which man knows 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 255 

the World show but the surface of its nature until he re- 
cognizes the truth : The Being of the World is a Unity of 
Force. 

Now we are by no means ready to identify all that is know- 
able with the abstract conception of a oneness of force. This 
would be substantially to repeat the ontology of Mr. Spencer, 
however much the particular terms were varied in which the 
conception was elaborated. Nor are we satisfied to employ 
Schopenhauer's much more intelligible term, and thus leap at 
one bound (with no attempt at discussion of the steps in the 
argument, but with scores of interesting, though partly irre- 
levant illustrations) to the conclusion : the all-inclusive 
Reality = a Unity of Will. Besides, as to the nature of 
that unity which metaphysical system must effect amongst the 
indefinite variety of forces (the almost infinite number of 
wills) actually known to man, there is needed detailed critical 
inquiry. It is in place to notice, however, that some concep- 
tion of Force pervades all cognitive experience, and to inquire 
critically into the genesis, development, objective application 
and significance in the physical and chemical sciences, of this 
conception, and into its ontological import and validity. For 
the truth is beyond all controversy that no semblance of a 
satisfactory theory of reality can be advanced, which does not 
give a most prominent place to this category. Indeed, it is 
just this category, which makes alive, effective, and impressive, 
both our practical and our theoretical view of the World. This 
gone or left out, we and all things can scarcely be even so 
much as U A moving row of shadow-shapes." 

The genesis and earlier developments of the conception of 
Force are connected with a certain experience, common to all 
men, which arises in the consciousness of those terms on 
which the Self has intercourse with Things. There are seve- 
ral uncertain factors in the analysis of this experience, even 
at the hands of the most incisive of experts in psychology. 
Indeed, so profound and comprehensive is this experience it- 



256 A THEORY OF REALITY 

self that no analysis will, probably, succeed in sounding its 
depths or in mapping out its entire domain. But its promi- 
nent features are sufficiently well-known and agreed upon to 
serve as points of attachment for a valid metaphysical theory. 
Into the details of this analysis, or into the defence of our own 
peculiar views respecting the psychology of the " Force-con- 
cept," it is not necessary to enter here. It will suffice to out- 
line this experience in the most elementary and sketchy 
fashion. 

If the " plain man's " consciousness is inquired of, as to the 
view which it holds concerning the explanations necessary to 
any understanding of the changes taking place in the complex 
of observed phenomena, both internal and external, this view 
may be suitably expressed in about the following way. I am 
myself constantly doing a lot of different things with my 
self or with the other beings which I meet in the course of my 
experience ; but, then, these other beings are also constantly 
doing a lot of different things with me. Moreover, I know 
equally well that these beings are constantly doing a lot of 
different things with one another. In short, I live in a world 
of beings that cannot, and that do not, let each other alone ; 
but they are, on the contrary, always doing something to one 
another, and having something done to them by one another. 
Practical knowledge consists, indeed, in knowing how to do 
with things ; how to get them to do in certain ways with me ; 
and how to avoid their doing with me, in certain other ways. 
All knowledge, both practical and theoretical, of the world in 
which I myself am placed, is knowledge of the manifold ways 
which its beings have had, and may be expected to have, of 
doing something and of having something done to them. 

That view of the changing complex of phenomena, which 
ascribes this complex to the reciprocal influences of the differ- 
ent beings of the world, in the centre of which the self stands 
as both observer and doer, is really a very profound and 
complicated view. It brings back upon us all the problems 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 257 

that belong to the attempts to deal critically with the con- 
ception of reality. But it need only be noticed now that 
the view is based upon the conception of Force as a Cause of 
Change. At the very heart of that experience which ex- 
presses its conclusions in such a naive but rational and highly 
suggestive way, we recognize the " self-felt but inhibited 
activity " to which we were obliged to refer as explaining the 
rise of the conception of "pure being" or "substantiality," 
as applied both to the self and to things. But, as was then 
said (see p. 123 f.), no actual, concrete experience is ever an 
experience of pure being, mere substance, or unconditioned 
activity. And the category now under examination — the 
conception, namely, of force as a cause explanatory of change 
— shows plain signs of the aggregation of other factors about 
this central and unanalyzable factor of all human experience. 
Activity is never pure ; action is always followed by change 
in the observed internal relations of the Self, and of the Self 
toward other Things. It is in this consciousness of acting, 
of being inhibited, and then made aware of subsequent 
changes in the relations of the Self and of external Things, 
that the conception of Force is formed. The action of any 
being, ivhen regarded^ as the cause of subsequent changes of 
relations, either internal or external to that being, is its exer- 
cise of "force " so-called. JPorce is action regarded as the 
cause of a change of relations. 

Further reflection upon every correct description of that 
particular experience in which the conception of force origi- 
nates shows, in a very impressive way, how inextricably in- 
tertwined are the categories in the genesis and development 
of all human experience. Here, when starting the attempt 
to discover the roots of the category of Force, there have 
been uncovered the kindred but not identical categories of 
Change, of Relation, and of a peculiar kind of relation 
which is ordinarily called that of " being a Cause. " But at 
the centre of all is the mysterious consciousness of " being 

17 



258 A THEORY OF REALITY 

alive ; " and this was found to be equivalent to a " self-felt 
activity. " 

The conception of cause ranks itself, from a certain point 
of view, under the conception of relation ; for causation is 
one among several kinds of relations, — namely, that partic- 
ular relation sustained by two beings in action, when one is 
said to be somehow accountable for the other's change of 
state. If it were not for observed changes in the relations 
of things there would surely be no need to discover, or to 
imagine, any explanation of change in the form of forces 
said to be "inherent in," or "transeunt upon " things. Yet 
cause itself, as will appear more clearly later on, is a con- 
ception of much greater complexity than is the conception of 
either action or force ; although the latter conception — that 
of force — cannot be detached, either in one's experience 
with particular realities, or in one's theory of reality, from 
that peculiar relation between things to which is given the 
name of "cause." Force itself, then, cannot be described 
(not to say defined) without reference to changes in the 
relations of things for which it furnishes the explanatory 
ground, or cause. 

What has just been claimed in a general way may now 
be illustrated by some example. Suppose that I have made 
up my mind to lift a stone, which is rather heavy for my 
unaided strength, and to place it in another position than 
the one it now occupies. It has fallen from my garden wall ; 
and I will replace it, if I am able. In planning this trans- 
action it is likely that no thought, not to say vivid feeling, 
of actually exerting force has entered the stream of my con- 
sciousness, up to the moment when I begin lifting hard at 
the stone. But if I have deliberated over the prospect of 
my success in the coming effort, my mental picture of the 
volitions I intend to put forth has been followed by a mental 
picture of resulting sensations of tension and strain on my 
part, and of the awakening, in a strong flood, of the feeling 



FORCE AXD CAUSATION 259 

of external resistance. If I chose to be very nice in my dis- 
crimination of the minute changes going on in my own self- 
conscious life, 1 might doubtless detect that the process of 
deliberation itself, with its consequent mental " effort " to 
determine beforehand the results of my yet further subse- 
quent muscular effort, had already caused a change in my 
own self. But, disregarding these niceties, which do not 
eventuate in the plain man's consciousness, I bend my back 
and stiffen my muscles to the task. At once the character 
of that stream of consciousness I call myself becomes most 
profoundly modified. Looked at from one point of view, I 
am aware that I am putting forth (for me) an immense 
amount of my force ; looked at from another but closely cor- 
related point of view, the stone is resisting this force of mine 
by itself putting forth a counteracting force. Jam lifting 
upward : it is pulling downward ; and the practical question 
is, which of the two is going to exert the dominant and over- 
coming force. Slowly I raise it to its place on the wail ; — 
it meantime showing the teeth of its obstinate resistance by 
scraping the skin, bruising the flesh and straining the heart 
and ■ back of its fellow energizer. Having overcome the 
stone with extreme difficulty, I now sit down on another 
neighboring stone, — myself overcome, — and proceed to re- 
flect upon the psychological description and metaphysical 
import of this accomplished transaction. 

About certain features and implications of every experi- 
ence like that just described there can be little or no doubt. 
On the side of self-consciousness the important factor is this : 
the idea and volition to produce a certain change in an ob- 
ject not-self — that Thing lying in space out of me and in 
certain observed relations to other external objects — has 
been followed by action in the psycho-physical Self, with an 
immense increase in the conscious "feeling of effort" so- 
called. Much of this complex feeling of effort is itself, 
psycho-physically considered, of peripheral origin; it is a 



260 A THEORY OF REALITY 

modification of sensation-consciousness due to the altered 
condition of muscles, joints, skin, heart, lungs, diaphragm, 
and other organs of the body external to the central nervous 
system. But there seems as little reasonable doubt, that 
this conscious modification is not all of peripheral, but is 
also largely of central origin. Quite irrespective of this 
disputed point in physiological psychology, there is abso- 
lutely no doubt as to how the total experience appears to the 
self in consciousness; it is as an immediately known, an 
"envisaged," exercise of its own force in the accomplish- 
ment of an end which has been previously presented in idea 
to the same self. 1 moved that stone — to be sure, ivith my 
body, and only by " putting forth " all my strength. It is 
in the force of which I was indisputably conscious as belong- 
ing for the time being to my psycho-physical self, that the 
vera causa of the change which has happened to this thing 
is to be found. This psycho-physical force of mine was, 
however, resisted strongly by the force of the stone ; it was 
inhibited so that at one instant it seemed as though my idea 
could not get itself realized in the contemplated change of 
the object-thing. Thus the entire transaction appears from 
the most interior point of view as a conflict of forces differ- 
ently centered — the one in my Self, and the other in the 
Thing, not-myself. 

Such a complex transaction, however, from start to finish, 
is not satisfactorily described in mere terms of self-felt and 
yet inhibited activity. For my more objective experience 
undergoes meanwhile a series of concomitant and dependent 
changes. By the various appropriate forms of sense-percep- 
tion I am made aware of a succession of crossed and inter- 
laced variations in the position of my own bodily members 
and in the positions of the object-thing (the stone) ; I per- 
ceive also a variety of changing relations between us both 
and other things. The stone is lifted, from the ground, in 
my arms, and placed upon the wall. Things external to my 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 261 

body are now arranged differently from the manner of their 
arrangement a few moments ago. Popularly expressed, the 
exertion of my force has made the stone change its place in 
space, by motion from one position to another : the exertion 
of the stone's force has resisted, pained, and fatigued me. 
The accomplished change in the stone's relation to other 
things has for its cause my forthputting of energy, directed 
toward an end mentally represented beforehand : the accom- 
plished change in the condition of myself has for its cause 
the forthputting of the energy of the thing with which I vol- 
untarily entered into a relation of conflict of forces. 

Such conceptions as the foregoing, doubtless, seem crude 
and anthropomorphic to the advocate of a dialectical meta- 
physics. Crude they may be : and anthropomorphic they 
certainly are. But in them there lies hidden the entire 
ontological problem of the world's incessant behavior, as 
that problem is given to man in all his cognitive experience 
concerning the terms on which he has commerce with his 
fellows and with things. And the alleged anthropomorph- 
ism, instead of turning out to be an incidental feature which 
progressive science succeeds in throwing off, is really a 
valid system of naive explanations that underlies the entire 
body of human science. Such anthropomorphism is an ex- 
planatory principle which must It trustingly received and 
faithfully applied in order to understand the deepest Nature 
of Reality. It is based upon the assumption that the trans- 
actions of the real world are all to be accounted for as the 
work of beings that, by virtue of the powers, or forces, cen- 
tring in them, are the causes of changes in the relations 
which they sustain to one another. The moment, however, 
this assumption is applied to transactions between things 
other than selves, it implicates the belief that things, too. 
are so far forth actually constituted after the analogy of the 
self-known Self. 

In a word, we have here discovered the genesis of the con- 



262 a THEORY OF REALITY 

ception of "Substantial Causality." This is a conception 
which arises inevitably out of our experience with things, 
and which, in the way of analogy, is carried over into the 
constitution of the things themselves. As says Wundt 2 : 
"The substantializing of the causal-concept undoubtedly 
has its psychological roots in our active personality " ( in 
der handelnden Persdnlichkeit)-, and, "in its first stadium 
the conception of Force, or Energy, is identical therewith " : 
" Kraft ist substantielle Causalitdt." The force that is 
ascribed to things — and without such ascription the entire 
world of ordinary experience and the world of scientific in- 
terest and achievement is a mere phantasmagoria, a swarm 
of "shadow-shapes" partially amenable to logical formulas 
— is projected into them on the assumption that they, like 
us, are real centres of self-activity, substantial causes of 
mutually determined changes in reality. 

The psychological objection to this view, that our experi- 
ence when we seem to ourselves to be " exerting force " is 
illusory, does not alter the metaphysical conclusion. For 
the fundamental problem is wholly missed by this objection. 
This problem is set by the inquiry : What is the genesis of 
the conception of force itself ? and, Why do I attribute force 
to things in their relations to me, even if I am not war- 
ranted in attributing it to my Self in relation to things ? 
To derive the genesis of the force-concept from a mere, pas- 
sively conceived sensation -content, is to substitute that 
which is first for that which is last; and vice versa. Or, 
rather, the cognitive experience out of which arise the con- 
ceptions of my Self exerting force, and of having force ex- 
erted upon me, is one and the same experience. Being 
active and being passive, doing and being done to, influenc- 
ing and being influenced, exerting force on another and 
being forced by another, — use what words you will, — they 
are explicable only as correlate terms. 

Moreover, such correlate terms cannot be explained, or 

1 System der Philosophic, p. 292 f. 



FORCE AXD CAUSATION 263 

eyen described with reference to their essential content, 
without reliance upon the validity of this same primitive 
universal experience. Somehow or other all men have the 
conception of force, and employ it as a principle of explana- 
tion for the changes which take place in the relations of the 
particular beings of the world. The chemico-physical sci- 
ences build their structures upon the same explanatory prin- 
ciple. But this conception cannot be obtained from any 
merely external and sensuous observation of the behavior 
of things. There is nothing in the mere intensity or exten- 
sive magnitude of sensations, considered - .rent, to jus- 
tify or even to suggest such a conception. What if, when 
_• jpa the stone and pulls upon it. the mi sci lar and 
tactual and other sensations become more painful and in- 
tense, and seem to spread over a larger area of the body ? 
What if one feels certain internal sensations, located in the 
heart, lungs, or diaphragm, changing in similar fashion I 
All this is, in itself, mere fact of change to be discriminated 
in the content of consciousness. But why explain this fact 
of change by attributing it to some invisible, intangible, 
non-sensuous cause, called my force, on the one hand, and 
called the force of gravitation, or the down-pulling force of 
the stone, on the other hand I To this question no answer 
can be given that does not recognize the truth which consti- 
tutes the core of every man's experience in all such cases. 
On the one hand, is in fact, a self-felt activity, and on the 
other hand, an inhibition of, or opposition to that activity: 
and this latter is actually attributed, after the analogy of 
the Self's behavior, to the Thing that is not-self. 

Now if by the study of physiology and physiological psy- 
chology it is shovrn that what appears in consciousness as a 
self-felt activity is, after all, only the feeling of the back, 
-. heart, lungs, and diaphragm, and that these impor- 
tant organs force upon consciousness the illusion of being 
a centre of activitv. the essential truth of the case is not 



264 A THEORY OF REALITY 

altered. The question recurs: Why are the back, or other 
organs of the body, thought of as being the "substantial 
causes " of both the change in my consciousness and also in 
the position of the external thing? This singular illusion 
as much needs to be accounted for as does the most naive 
confidence of an unreflecting realism. In fact, to speak of 
the application of the force-concept to the Self as an illusion 
only increases the difficulties in the way of understanding 
the genesis of the concept itself. Instead of doing honor to 
the real potencies residing in things, and to the sciences 
which deal so successfully with these potencies, this defec- 
tive psychological analysis goes far to undermine the reality 
of all force and the truthfulness of all the physical sciences. 

The candid physicist is apt to have far less trouble with 
his metaphysics of force than is the psychologist who is 
influenced by the prejudices of an insufficient analysis. This 
is because the former deals with the phenomena in terms of 
conceptions that, however crude they may be, are based upon 
fundamental data in some genuine, safe, and realistic way. 
The examination of the current physical uses of this cate- 
gory is therefore most instructive to the student of syste- 
matic metaphysics. But on the threshold of any such 
examination we are met by two classes of writers on phys- 
ics. There are those who, being from the first desirous to 
avoid all metaphysical assumptions or else suspicious of the 
particular implications which belong to the conception of 
force, try to make as little use as possible of this concep- 
tion. But other writers, seeing clearly that this conception 
cannot possibly be dispensed with by the scientific student 
of physical principles, define it, at least in a provisional and 
semi-practical way. They then proceed either to employ the 
conception in the development of their science, or to substi- 
tute for it the more definite and manageable conception of 
energy. 

It is notable of that class of physicists who make the more 



FORCE AXD CAUSATION 265 

serious attempt to handle the conceptions of physics with as 
little as possible recognition of the metaphysical nature of 
the conception of Force that they succeed in appearance 
only: over and over again they find themselves compelled 
to introduce covertly the same conception, although ex- 
pressed in obscure and inappropriate terms, If the word 
"energy"- be substituted for the word "force." we do indeed 
obtain a most valuable new working theory. But if we de- 
fine or even describe in terms of our experience with real 
things, what is meant by energy, we can scarcely avoid in- 
troducing in a modified way factors belonging to the other 
and more fundamental conception, To speak of "work"' 
actually done, or of the "potential " of work, involves a ref- 
erence to rssentially the same experience. All the measure- 
ments of physics are indeed, primarily accomplished by the 
application of some standard to the results of force — that is, 
to the movements of physical bodies, or to the distances and 
relations in space of bodies regarded as movable. But the 
very significance of spatial relations, as indicating the pos- 
sibility, or the certainty, of actual movement in the future, 
is entirely lost without reference to the conception of force 
as the non-sensuous cause of change. 

Physics itself, as soon as it becomes anything more than 
a purely abstract science of phoronomics. is essentially a 
science of dynamics. Indeed, phoronomics itself = kine- 
matics ; and the latter cannot be brought into touch with 
reality anywhere except as it "forma properly an introduc- 
tion to mechanics." because it "involves the mathematical 
principles which are applied to its data of forces." 

Still further, it will be found that all attempts to describe 
or define those material beings which physical science investi- 
gates, are obliged to connect the conception of force, as a 
cause, with their description or definition of matter. Tn the 
barest and vaguest thought about it. matter is. at leas', a 
" that-which " producing effects in the senses of man. And 



26Q A THEORY OF REALITY 

if this bare and vague thought is helped out — as must hap- 
pen before the beginnings of a science of physics can emerge 

— by statements concerning the habitual doings of this sub- 
stance, these statements themselves become descriptive of 
different effects ascribed to one substantial cause. Here 
again the mind is led back to the experience which warrants 
this belief : To be a force = to be a substantial cause. 

Abundant illustrations of the impossibility of treating 
physical subjects without virtually introducing the concep- 
tion of Force as a Substantial Cause of changing spatial rela- 
tions may be derived from all the writings which have made 
the attempt at such treatment. It is better worth the while 
of the critical student of metaphysics, however, to note how 
all the more definite accepted_ descriptions of this category 

— however imperfectly or awkwardly expressed — come to 
the same fundamental conclusion. The world of things 
which are constantly changing their relations in space, by 
movement in gross masses, and movement of their molecular 
or atomic parts, must be explained to the human intellect as 
dependent upon invisible and intangible causes — called the 
forces "of," or "in," or "belonging to," things. These 
very words "of," and "in," and "belonging to," are them- 
selves the embodiment, in figures of speech, of that same 
fundamental and essentially unchanging experience which 
has already been described and analyzed. The physical in- 
terpretation of these figures of speech would lead science 
into not a few awkward predicaments ; it is, therefore, quite 
the correct thing for modern physics to decline to discuss 
the meaning for reality of these significant figures of speech. 
It is not the physicist's business to tell what is the qualifica- 
tion, or aspect, of things which makes it at all appropriate 
for us to speak of them as in the possession of or as being the 
seats of those physical forces which are the invisible and 
intangible substantial causes of the most complex of changes 
that go on in the material World. 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 267 

"Force." says Sir William Thomson. u \s any cause which 
tends to alter a 1 xly's natural state 01 rest or of uniform 

morion in a straight line." Here the essentially true fac- 
tors of the conception are precisely this : Force is the cause 
: any change in the motion of a 1 idy as referred to another 
body. To speak of K rest or of uniform motion in a straight 
line" as the " naturil state" of the bodies of the physical 
universe is a fiction which, however useful it may be for 
theoretical purposes (and of this even we have our doubts is 
an entirely inadequate representation of the real facts of the 
This theoretical simplicity does not represent nature 
as we find it. Rarely, if ever, does nature show to man. as 
existing in the present or as having existed in the past in 
any of its masses or of the particles composing its masses. 
ter rest or uniform motion in a straight line. And i: 
such were the "natural " state of the world's physical bod:,-. 
dc system of detlnit-ly constructed and organized things 
which is precisely what we call Nature, could ever be ac- 
counted for by any theory of forces that did not take experi- 
ence more into the account. The natural state of all things 
is. so far as experience mak^s us acquainted with i:. est- 
less and ceaseless changes of motions, through infinitely 
varied spatial relations to one another. The invisible 
causes of these changes are the forces that are figuratively 
said to "reside in." or "belong to," the different things. 
As to the propriety of identifying a mere tendency with a 
force, as does the definition of Thomson, we will not remark 
here. 

More clear-cut is the definition of force which reverses the 
point of starting in the following way : - Every cause cap- 
il lc :: determining the movement of a body, or of modify- 
ing a movement already existing, is called Force. " J But to 
speak of "a cause capable of determining" is to repeat the 

1 From the "Coras ele'rneniaire de Physique " of Bouran an:. D' Almeida 
I., p. E 



268 A THEORY OF REALITY 

causal idea twice over; and this, after having once suffi- 
ciently indicated its existence by the word "cause." For 
no force-less being is "capable" of doii?g anything; and no 
being can "determine " the movement of another being with- 
out acting upon that other as a cause. When, again, force 
is defined as " any action between material bodies by which 
they change or tend to change each other's condition " (so S. 
Newcomb), the thought is expressed that the activity of one 
thing is regarded as a cause (as that " by which ") of change 
in the internal or external relations of another (a mutual 
change, as " between ; " or possibly to be regarded as con- 
fined to a change of " condition "). But if all physical phe- 
nomena are resolved into changes of position or of motion, 
then force is briefly defined as "the efficient cause of all 
physical phenomena" (E. C. Pickering). Indeed, most of the 
modern definitions of force, as a fundamental conception in 
physics, contain only comparatively slight modifications of 
the language in which Newton stated the fourth definition 
of Book I. of his " Principia " : " Force is an action exerted 
upon a body in order to change its state either of rest or of 
moving uniformly forward in a right line." But Newton's 
statement involves both the same assumption, that rest, or 
uniform motion in a straight line, is the natural condition 
of real things, and also the fictitious and external view of 
the whole subject which regards an action as something cap- 
able of actual transmission from body to body. It also has 
this superfluity: it introduces the teleological idea ("in 
order to "), — in language, if not in fact. Somewhat unne- 
cessarily metaphysical for the purposes of the physicist, 
perhaps, are the following attempts to define this category : 
"The invisible causes of these reciprocal actions we call 
forces ; " 1 or, " The last cognizable cause of any change what- 
ever is called Force." 2 

1 Miiller's " Lehrbucb der Physik und Meteorologie ; " I, p. 30. 

2 Bohn's " Ergebnisse physikalischer Forschung ; " I, p. 3. 



FORCE AXD CAUSATION 269 

For the vague and intractable metaphysical conception 

which attaches itself to the word Force, a substitute has 

been provided, with a more definite and workable content, 
by modern physics in connection with its use of the word 
"Energy." Here the thought is a measurable quantity of 
work which is expressed by the configuration or motions of 
the bodies constituting a system and so reciprocally related 
to each other. Thus vre are told that " energy may be de- 
fined as the power of doing work or of overcoming resis- 
tance " l " Encyc. Brit '* >. But sin:e " overcoming resistance " 
is one of the finest and bravest ways of "doing work,' 3 one 
scarcely sees the need of employing both clauses. Two of 
the writer.-, whose definitions of force have already been 
quoted, express their conception of energy, as follows: 
"Energy is an ideal physical quantity which serves as a 
common measure of certain forces or results of action in 
nature '* (S. Xewcomb) : or "By energy is meant the capacity 
of a body to do work " < E. C. Pick-ring . Of these two 
definitions the former brings out more clearly the ineasur- 
ableness of the energy belonging to every physical body, 
whether by virtue of its position, or its motion, in relation 
to other bodies: hat the language becomes vacillating and 
obscure when it divides that which is measured into " forces. " 
on the one hand, and "the results of action." on the other 
hand. The second of these two definitions fails to bring 
out clearly the quantitative aspect of all those problems in 
physics which deal with the conception of energy. For 
unless " eaoaeity '' means merely amount of work, we have 
in it and in the words "doing" and "work." the same idea 
repeated once or twice over. 

As far as the metaphysical view of the category of Force 
is concerned, the physical conception of Energy has nothing 
either to add or to detract, But in its way of representing 
the real beings and actual transactions with which it is the 
business of physical science to deal, the latter conception, as 



270 A THEORY OF REALITY 

customarily held by modern writers, is much the more cor- 
rect and satisfactory of the two. For, in the first place, the 
modern conception of energy isolates some system of bodies, 
and considers as its definite problem their changes of actual 
position or of motion; second, it emphasizes the doing of 
work, which is something appreciable and measurable; 
and, third, the different " works " performed by the different 
bodies or systems are held to be comparable with one an- 
other, by application of some common standard, in terms of 
number. Upon the basis of this kind of computation we 
may arrive at the dynamical science of the changes of things. 
This, then, is the picture of a world of real physical beings, 
all at work, with varying and yet comparable intensities and 
results. No real being is there in this world, that does not 
do some work; no being is there whose work may not be 
brought into relations with the work of other beings for 
their mutual hindrance or furtherance. A grandly dynami- 
cal world, where every " body " is at work ; and neither 
beings, nor forces, are ghostlike and merely conceptual, 
or in the air ! Or — to state the truth in less figurative 
terms, although perhaps in a way which trangresses the 
limits of safe physical theory : — " The conception of energy 
arises out of the direct recognition of the fact that every 
possible change in the physical universe is effected against 
some Force, and it is just in virtue of its power of overcom- 
ing such force that a body is said to have energy. ... It is 
in virtue of its possession of so much energy — a measurable 
thing — that any body does work, i.e., produces change 
against force. " 1 

If now we analyze more carefully this dynamical concep- 
tion of the world which modern physical science has adopted, 
it seems to involve the following important particulars : (1) 
The world of things is known as having some sort of Unity 
that is referable to the Conception of Force; (2) this unity 

1 " Relation of Matter to Energy." Monograph by " B. L. L " 



FOECE AND CAUSATION 271 

comprises, however, a vast number of particular beings that 
must be regarded as in possession of, or as centres of, defin- 
ite and measurable amounts of force : (3) these particular 
beings, — vehicles of energy, or centres of force, — as they 
change their relations to one another in space, or their in- 
ternal condition (the relations of the molecules or atoms 
that compose them), must be thought of as increasing or 
diminishing in the amounts of work they are doing; (4) the 
change in the amounts of work doing by these particular 
beings is to be regarded as caused by a redistribution of the 
One Force of the world; (5) all changes of relations and 
conditions, which take place through this ceaseless redistri- 
bution of the World's Force, are in accordance with certain 
ideal limitations (that is to say they are not haphazard, but 
are according to law') : and, finally, (6) thus does the World 
acquire a Unity which is both dynamical and ideal, because 
it consists of a vast number of beings, that are all doing- 
work "upon"' one another, but in some fashion that has re- 
spect to a set of regulations and, it may be, to some common 
goal or end. At any rate, upon this last point, the actual 
results observed, and both accepted as a working postulate 
and also progressively proved by experience to constitute a 
true physical theory, indicate an orderly behavior of many 
beings, in the accomplishment of a "self-respecting'' and 
"mutually respecting " work. This work, as a totality and 
in all its details, involves constant resistance, conflict, reac- 
tion as well as action, destruction of the old as well as con- 
struction of the new. But all this conflict and change does 
not affect any of these six essential "moments " in the physi- 
cal and dynamical conception of the world. 

Xow, before a student of systematic metaphysics trans- 
lates this picture — so fair and grand, yet terrible in some 
of its aspects — into the ultimate terms of his theory, he 
must give some attention to those more particular features 
of the picture about which modern physical science is still 



272 A THEORY OF REALITY 

obscure and uncertain, and even, perhaps, in some cases, 
self-contradictory. Among such features is the customary 
way which physical science has of elaborating the doctrine 
of this ceaseless redistribution of energy. Of course, it 
would not be fair to expect of physical science that it should 
think out for itself the meaning of all the figures of speech 
which it is obliged to employ. Probably few of its students 
do not recognize at once the truth of the statement that to 
speak of energy as some kind of an entity, which can actu- 
ally pass from one physical body to another, or which can be 
regarded as a kind of gross sum that is capable of being it- 
self subdivided into different amounts and species of ener- 
gies, is to employ highly figurative language for the scientific 
expression of a multitude of facts that differ widely in their 
character as given by our actual experience. When, then, 
so clear thinkers as Tait and Clerk-Maxwell assert that 
"energy has been shown to have as much claim to objective 
reality as matter has " (Tait), and yet "energy we know only 
as that which, in all natural phenomena, is continually pass- 
ing from one portion of matter to another " (Clerk -Maxwell), 1 
we must understand them as dealing in convenient figures of 
speech. As to the truth which is expressed in the former of 
these two statements, only thus much is either certain or 
intelligible. The only "claim to objective reality," which 
physical energy can show is to be found in our ideal inter- 
pretation of the observed or imagined changes in the rela- 
tions of material things. On the other hand, the only 
"claim to objective reality" which matter has, depends 
upon things so manifesting themselves in our experience 
as that we are compelled to regard them as possessing and 
exercising force. That is to say, "matter" must show 
"force," in order to establish its claim to objective reality; 
but physical " force " is itself never shown apart from some 
kind of physical existence = "matter," in general. To 

1 Matter and Motion, p. 165. 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 273 

speak then of our knowing energy only as it continually 
"passes from one portion of matter (thing, or constituent of 
a thing) to another," is to deny that we can know energy at 
all For energy can never be known, or even conceived of, 
as an objective reality capable of actual transference from 
one thing to another. 

At this point it is necessary to call critical reflection back 
to the facts of cognitive experience. What the mind knows 
is simply this : (1) material things are constantly changing 
both their external relations to one another in space, and 
also the internal relations of their constituent parts; (2) 
these changes are measurable and comparable, by applica- 
tion of standards chosen for purposes of theoretical or prac- 
tical convenience ; and (3) the causes for these changes we 
are somehow compelled to find in the so-called "forces" 
belonging to the things. The general facts of experience 
may be expressed as follows : Of a number of physical be- 
ings, A, B, C, D, etc., existing together in time, their simul- 
taneous or successive changes are observed to conform to 
some ideal principle, or formula, such as x = A. _F, or x 
varies as y' y. The cause of this uniform, mutually depen- 
dent behavior of A, B, C, I), etc., is then declared to be 
found in their common possession of one (or one kind of) 
energy ; — namely, Eg or Eh (energy due to gravitation, or 
energy that is called heat). And, next, the principle, or 
formula, is spoken as the law of that particular kind of 
energy (the formula, L, which is followed by Eg or Eh). 

But, further, it is learned by experience that when the 
measurable changes in the internal condition or external 
relations of A are increased or diminished by a certain num- 
ber of units of the standard, then corresponding changes in- 
crease or diminish in the internal condition or external 
relations of B — provided that A and B are the two bodies 
exclusively to be considered. What is true of A and B, is 
also true of A and (7, of B and C, and of A and J), etc. ; and 

18 



274 A THEORY OF REALITY 

so on, until all the beings concerned (A, B, C, D, . . . JV) 
are considered in all their possible inter-relations. Hence 
the warrant for that figure of speech which regards lasa 
gross amount of an entity called energy, that may be redis- 
tributed continually amongst A, B, 0, I), etc., by being 
transmitted or passed over from one to another. The im- 
possibility of any such actual transaction, however, follows 
from the very nature of force; and no meaning valid for 
reality can be given to any of the expressions that follow 
this figure of speech without referring back to the original 
experience to which the genesis of the entire conception of 
force has been traced. All that is observed by the senses 
is external to the true inner nature of things, regarded as 
centres of force; but we know what this inner nature is, 
whenever we have that living commerce with them in which 
our will-power is met, opposed, and overcomes or is van- 
quished, by the will-power which we, on account of this very 
experience attribute to them. 

In this connection the fallacy of one assumption, — at any 
rate, as an assumption — which has clung to the science of 
physics with a strange pertinacity requires a brief notice. 
This assumption is the denial of actio in distans, as though 
it were impossible and even inconceivable as a qualification 
or potency of matter. When the mystery of gravitation was 
first discovered, it was natural enough to endeavor to lessen 
this mystery by explaining the so-called force of gravitation 
through some kind of impact. If enough little bodies could 
be imagined to hit the big bodies a sufficient number of ener- 
getic blows to the second, the former could give over into 
the possession of the latter a force sufficient to account for 
their influence upon one another through intervening space. 
Thus Newton, in a letter to Bentley, 1 declares it to be "in- 
conceivable that inanimate brute matter should . . . affect 
other matter without mutual contact." "That one body," 

1 See Newton's Works, ed. S. Horsley, vol. iv. p. 438. 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 275 

he adds, "may act upon another at a distance through a 
vacuum without the medium of anything else, " is " so great 
an absurdity that no man who has in philosophical matters 
a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. " In 
accordance with the same views of the inconceivability of a 
true actio in distans we find Bernoulli 1 declaring the exercise 
of force without impact "revolting to minds accustomed to 
receiving no principle in physics save those which are in- 
contestable." "There is," says Professor Challis 2 also, "no 
other kind of force than pressure by contact of one body with 
another." And not a few of the highest modern authorities 
have not hesitated to pronounce upon the a priori impossi- 
bility of the conception of the action of force without im- 
pact. " Gravity cannot act," boldly declares Mohr, 3 "except 
by the interposition of ponderable matter. " " Forces acting 
through void space are inconceivable, nay absurd," says Du 
Bois-Reymond, 4 "and have become familiar concepts among 
physicists since Newton's time from a misapprehension of 
his doctrine and against his express warning." And the 
authors of the "Unseen Universe," 5 in plainest violation of 
the confidence which they might well have reposed in the 
title chosen for their treatise, affirm : " Of course the as- 
sumption of action at a distance may be made to account for 
anything; but it is impossible (as Newton has long pointed 
out in his celebrated letter to Bentley) for any one 'who has 
in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking ' for 
a moment to admit the possibility of such action. " 

Now as to the question of fact — namely, whether the phy- 
sical bodies of the universe do act, as it is figuratively said, 
"upon" one another, without coming into relations of con- 
tact — metaphysics is entirely ready to leave the observa- 

1 See the reference in Stallo, " Modern Physics," p. 55. 

2 Philos. Mag. 4th Series, vol. xxxi., p. 467. 

3 "Geschichte der Erde," Appendix, p. 512. 

4 Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens, p. 20. 

5 Ibid., 3d ed., p. 100 (Stewart and Tait). 



276 A THEORY OF REALITY 

tions of physicists to decide. And here two conceptions of 
matter (to which reference will be made later on) have for a 
long time contested, and perhaps will always continue to 
contest the field. These are the conception of matter as 
consisting of masses, or elements, set in an empty medium 
of space, and the conception of matter as a completely space- 
filling continuum. Now there is nothing in the nature of the 
conception of force which enables us to choose between these 
two conceptions ; and both of them leave the nature of force, 
considered as the substantial cause of the changes which go 
on in the configurations and spatial relations of material 
masses, equally mysterious, equally natural, simple, and 
intelligible. But if we are driven to a choice on a priori 
grounds between the two, we may well declare that offhand 
denials of the possibility of actio in distans are, of all forms 
of assumption, the most childishly anthropomorphic. In- 
deed, the only solid ground afforded for these denials is 
the fact that we, bodily selves, cannot determine changes in 
not-selves, in things external to the body, unless we get 
some bodily organ so close to the things that we can feel 
their pressure without readily seeing between it and them. 
This is what impact means to the senses. And, indeed, one 
of these authorities in physics rests his objections upon this 
very ground. Professor Challis expressly insists that since, 
only when we have come into actual contact with a thing, do 
" we feel in ourselves the power of causing motion by such 
pressure," and since "personal sensation " is the only "basis 
of scientific knowledge," we are forbidden to admit that 
any mode of moving one body by another is possible except 
that of contact and pressure. 

But in answer to those physicists who claim the inconceiv- 
ability of actio in distans, the objections from psychology and 
philosophy are numerous and complete. Pressure-feeling is, 
of itself, no more translatable into immanent or transeunt 
force than is another kind of feeling. The apparent contact 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 277 

of the bodily organ with the thing it presses upon is not 
actual contact. Neither it nor any other two things or mi- 
nute subdivisions of things, are ever known by the senses to 
come into actual contact; and the mystery of influence over 
the minutest amount of space is essentially as great as that 
of influence over millions of miles of space. Moreover, 
actio in distans cannot be conceived of as the traversing, by an 
entity called force, of either the smaller or the larger dis- 
tance; for there is really no such transaction as the actual 
passing of force from one body to another. Such a passing 
— no matter how close the contact — is the inconceivable 
thing, and not the figuratively so-called actio in distans. 
And, indeed, the idea that " a body cannot act where it is 
not," is the relic of mediaeval metaphysics in the domain of 
modern physics. 

But the one demand which the philosophical mind makes 
upon the conception of force is that it shall serve actually to 
unite the varied changes in the different bodies of the physi- 
cal world into the Unity of a System. It was this demand 
which Xewton felt, as the very passage cited so often by his 
followers explicitly shows. For this passage ends with the 
significant declaration : " Gravity must be caused by an 
agent acting constantly according to certain laws " (that is, 
in a legal and ideal way) ; " but whether this agent is mate- 
rial or immaterial 1 have left to the consideration of my 
readers." Now since all force is essentially "immaterial," 
in the meaning in which Xewton uses this word, and yet is 
immanently connected with the very being of all so-called 
material things, one may guess without long-continued hesi- 
tation what view of the truth this master in physics felt 
himself compelled to take. Force, which is = cause of 
changes of motion, is an immaterial agent, but present in 
all material things ; otherwise these things would be " in- 
animate brute matter " — to use Newton's own significant 
words. 



278 A THEORY OF REALITY 

The modern physical principle of the conservation and 
correlation of energy, and the claim that the quantum of 
such energy in the universe is unchanging, summarizes a 
vast amount of observation and carefully framed theory. 
The propositions and assumptions which enter into this the- 
ory are worthy of careful examination by the student of sys- 
tematic metaphysics ; but their complete truthfulness in 
fact, or the satisfactoriness of the theory, does not alter the 
nature or the validity of his conception of Force. The the- 
ory, however, requires one distinction which is of no little 
interest and importance. This is the distinction between 
" kinetic " energy and " potential " energy ; or between en- 
ergy which is measurable as observable changes in the ex- 
ternal relations or internal conditions of bodies, and energy 
which is imagined to be located in these bodies by virtue 
of their relations of position or their statical condition of 
strain, tension, etc. In the one case we have the concep- 
tion of energy that is actually " doing work " by producing 
changes of velocity in the masses or the constituents of the 
masses, of physical bodies ; in the other, case, we are asked 
to imagine an energy which is liable to be " set free " for the 
actual doing of work by some change in the mutual configur- 
ation of the bodies of the system in which it resides. Of 
course the language employed by this distinction is highly 
figurative. That energy, which is something essentially per- 
ceivable and measurable as a product of mass and velocity, 
or units of motion in units of time, should be spoken of as 
"potential" or "stored," carries our reflection back to the 
psychological origin and metaphysical signifiance of the con- 
ception of Force. 

Most instructive, therefore, is it to take the ideas in- 
volved in the distinction between potential energy and 
kinetic energy before our naive and unscientific experience 
with things. In this experience we note the significant fact 
that one often seems to one's self to be exercising, or suffer- 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 279 

ing from, no small amount of force, without any notable 
change by way of motion marking the result. This would 
have been the case with me at the instant when I was lift- 
ing hard at the stone and the stone had not yet begun to 
move. I should then have known myself as in a condition 
of "stress" or "strain," — that is, as possessed of energy 
not yet made effective as a cause of actual motion. The 
not-self-object, the stone, would also have been thought of 
as liable to prove too strong for me. It will perhaps con- 
tinue to cling to the ground; or when raised a little way, it 
will move backward toward the ground, in defiance of my 
utmost force. 

Moreover, the advantages and disadvantages of "position," 
as respects the effects of the ordinary exercise of so-called 
force, are perfectly well known by every observing man. 
For the stone can show me its inherent force in a much more 
convincing way when it is placed upon my foot ; or particu- 
larly when it falls upon me from a considerable height. 
Again, if I throw it from my hand, it drops to the ground 
at a more or less remote point according as I put more or 
less of my force into the throw. Or if I wish to avail my- 
self of the weight of the stone, or of a hammer, to accom- 
plish work, the higher the lift of the implement, the greater 
the amount of work done by the blow. 

What is thus crude and inaccurate in every man's worka- 
day knowledge, physical science renders refined, accurate, 
and statable in terms of definite formulas. But it does not 
in the least change man's conception of what can really be 
meant by the " storing " of energy, or by the " potency " 
which things have exclusively in virtue of their advantageous 
positions; or by the "conversion" of a kind of energy that 
is not actually doing work into an energy which is actually 
at work, as soon as the favoring circumstances are found. 
Inasmuch as it taxes the imagination to picture non-self-like 
things in the possession of that of which they show no signs ; 



280 A THEORY OF REALITY 

inasmuch, too, as more careful observation frequently reveals 
an indefinite number of minute movements, hitherto unsus- 
pected, going on in such things; the tendency of physical 
theory is toward the assumption that so-called potential 
energy is never really non-kinetic. "Potential energy," 
says Tait, "must in some way depend upon motion." If 
this assumption could be verified in all cases to perfection, 
then the sum of the squares of the velocity of every portion 
of matter, multiplied by its mass, would be a constant 
quantity. Then apparent losses of energy would be only 
apparent. And this is precisely what Leibnitz 2 — although 
somewhat crudely — conceived to be true, in the example of 
two non-elastic bodies, when encountering each other. They 
become, he thinks, "agitated interiorly" with an amount of 
motion which shows that there has been no real loss of their 
active forces. The physicist Huygens, 2 asserted the same 
opinion, as follows : " The quantity of movement which bod- 
ies have cannot be increased or diminished by their encoun- 
tering each other ; but it always remains the same quantity 
in the same direction (vers la meme cSte), after subtracting 
the quantity of movement in the opposite direction." 

It is, indeed, only as an abstract and a priori principle of 
phoronomics that the modern theory of the conservation and 
correlation of energy can be pronounced to be demonstrative 
or even of universal applicability. As a formula explana- 
tory of the real facts of experience it is a presupposition in 
which a number of the fundamental dynamical conceptions 
of physics are united 3 ; it is not workable at all without 
admitting the somewhat obscure metaphysical distinction 
between actual energy and potential energy ; it has hitherto 
been proved, as an empirical rule, only within a somewhat 

1 " Comp. Opera," ed. Erdmann, p. 775." 

2 Article, " On the History of Force," by Dr. C. K. Akin : " Phil. Mag." 4th 
Series, vol. xxviii., p. 470 f. 

3 Comp. Wundt, " System der Philosophic," p. 467 (Phoronomische und 
dynamische Principien). 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 281 

narrow range of observation ; and it is available for purposes 
of prediction (that last test of the scientific character of any 
principle) only in a certain still more narrow class of cases. 

The clearest picture of a case to which the theory of the 
conservation and correlation of physical energy incontest- 
ably applies may be gained in somewhat the following way : 
Let us suppose a number of bodies • — A, B, C, D, . . . iV — 
the aggregate sum of whose capacity for doing work = X, if 
both their energies of motion and also their energies of posi- 
tion, as due to the amounts of attractions and repulsions 
belonging to their relations in space, be taken into the ac- 
count in calculating X. Then, so long as this system of 
bodies is considered in a merely quantitative way, and as 
uninfluenced from outside itself, the energy of the total sys- 
tem will be neither increased nor diminished. The energy 
distributed among the different bodies of the system, re- 
garded as either the actual or the potential changes in their 
external relations and internal conditions, will be a con- 
stant quantity. The energy of A, B, C, D, . . , N, will 
remain = X. To employ the terse language of Professor 
Tyndall, on the supposition that the " system " dealt with 
includes all the bodies of the universe, we may say : " The 
whole stock of energy or working power in the world con- 
sists of attractions, repulsions, and motions;" — add configu- 
rations, and this stock is a constant quantity. 

Now it is to be observed that, when the principle of the 
conservation and correlation of energy is stated even in this 
most abstract manner, the statement implies a number of 
assumptions which can never be completely verified by hu- 
man experience ; that any concrete application of the prin- 
ciple to a particular system of bodies requires data which 
only experience can furnish ; and that any actual application 
may possibly modify the conception of the principle itself, 
in a very material way. For, in order to work the theory, 
it is assumed that the exact amount of energy stored in each 



282 A THEORY OF REALITY 

mass, and in each molecule or atom, of the bodies belonging 
to the system, by virtue of all its relations to every other 
mass, molecule, and atom, is already known. It is also 
assumed that the system must be regarded as uninfluenced 
from outside of itself. As a matter of fact, man has no 
knowledge of any such system; and he can never, from the 
very nature of his experience with things, obtain a knowledge 
of any such system. For example, it is possible to consider 
for theoretical purposes some of the motions of the bodies 
of the planetary system as belonging to a closed system. 
But the movements which the entire system performs, as it 
accompanies the sun on its ceaseless journey into unknown 
spaces, are to be explained, if at all, by influences, from out- 
side itself. And whether the whole universe is receiving 
additions from, or making losses to "the outside," can never 
be known, because our calculations can never include the 
whole universe ; not to speak of " stocks " of energy outside 
of all existing physical bodies — possibly in some "immate- 
rial agent," such as Newton felt the need of in order to 
transmit and distribute the force of gravitation. 

The principle of the conservation and correlation of energy 
also assumes that the system to which it is applied may be 
considered in a merely quantitative way, at least so far as 
its power for doing work is concerned. But the principle of 
the " conservation " of energy, as a constant and unchange- 
able quantity, is not workable as an explanation of the facts 
• of human experience, until it is united with the principle of 
the " correlation " of energy. That is to say, Nature must 
be at liberty to change the kind of energy she employs, or 
she cannot agree to keep her stock unchangeable in quantity. 
Or, to quote from Clerk-Maxwell: "The total energy of any 
body or system of bodies is a quantity which can neither be 
increased nor diminished by any mutual action of these 
bodies, though it may be transformed into any one of the 
forms of which energy is susceptible" (the italics are ours). 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 283 

Thus this mysterious big X, which the physical theory of 
energy would like to render manageable by considering it as 
a gross quantity (X when it becomes kinetic energy, or Force 
actually doing work — no matter about its kind = %^MV' Z ) 
becomes, as soon as the theory is applied to actual things, an 
indefinite storehouse of Force that differentiates itself into 
kinds according to the native preferences, or repulsions, 
which the different elements and masses have for one an- 
other. And so far as we now know, every little x (as for 
example, the molecules in a crystal, or the atoms in a chem- 
ical compound, or the molecules and atoms in a living cell) 
has a somewhat peculiar set of " laws " in control of the pre- 
cise items of work done within its system. 

It becomes necessary, then, in order to give a valid em- 
pirical basis to the view that the amount of energy in the 
world is kept constant (or " conserved "), that we should 
know precisely on what numerical terms — so to speak — 
any gross amount is converted into different so-called kinds 
of energy. These are the terms of agreement, or " correla- 
tion," amongst the different ways which the different beings 
of the world have, of doing their different kinds of work. 
Now modern physics has made some notable, but not a 
large, progress in reducing to approximately accurate form- 
ulas the quantitative relations which are uniformly main- 
tained between the different kinds of physical energy. Its 
success has been most marked as respects the correlations of 
the energy of moving masses with the molecular energy 
called "heat." In respect of the mathematical theory of 
light, of electricity, and of magnetism, it has put forth com- 
mendable efforts definitely to correlate the kinds of energy 
connected with these phenomena, with one another, and with 
the energy of heat and of gravitation. In carrying out these 
efforts it has felt itself compelled to assume the existence of 
another kind of being, called "ether," which is in some re- 
spects astonishingly unlike that kind of being which is 



284 A THEORY OF EEALITY 

known through the senses and is called "matter." Even 
by the help of this assumption, however, it is still far from 
a successful inductive proof for the necessary and universal 
character of the principle of the conservation and correla- 
tion of energy. Ordinary, "brute and inanimate matter," 
when considered as constituted out of some seventy different 
kinds of elements, as these constituents enter into the indefi- 
nitely manifold relations of which they are capable, shows 
itself capable of doing very manifold amounts and kinds of 
actual work. The facts of chemistry, inorganic and organic, 
and especially physiological, are at present so fast outstrip- 
ping the merely quantitative explanations offered by physi- 
cal theory, that to assert the undoubted applicability of this 
principle to all these facts is seemingly to anticipate by cen- 
turies the needed empirical proofs. 

It is not, however, for the purpose of contesting the theory 
of energy held by modern physics that the above remarks 
have been made. We wish only to call attention back to 
the actual picture of the physical world with which man's 
trustworthy knowledge presents him, and to the real and valid 
meaning of those figures of speech which physical science 
employs in stating its own principles. The " energy " dis- 
played by the world of things is, of course, not really an 
entity which can be "stocked" and "distributed," "con- 
served " as a lump sum and " correlated " with itself as it 
takes on a variety of different kinds. The truth of fact is 
simply this : the physical bodies known to us behave in such 
a manner that if we are at liberty to regard them merely as 
vehicles of energy, we can partially explain this behavior in 
terms of mathematical formulas. This mode of explanation, 
however, is and must forever remain exceedingly " partial." 

For mathematical formulas never in themselves furnish 
the complete and satisfactory explanation of the behavior of 
things, with reference to one another. And — truth to say 
— no mathematical formulas for the behavior of things, ex- 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 285 

pressed in terms of a common cause, are obtainable in the 
great majority of observed cases. Yet those relations of 
things, in which no known formula will comprise, even in a 
figurative way, the quantitative terms on which the rela- 
tions are uniformly established, are among the most impor- 
tant and universal. 

So far as we at present know, much of the behavior of 
physical bodies is dependent upon the " natures " of some 
seventy different kinds of elements, which, when they are 
brought sufficiently close to one another in space, combine 
in an indefinite variety of ways — though always in obedi- 
ence to certain laws of number and under uniform condi- 
tions. Thus combining, these elements exhibit ever new 
and surprising physical qualities. And if they can be " in- 
fluenced " to combine in yet more complicated ways, by 
some already existing arrangement such as belongs to the 
living cell, the same elements will do yet more marvellous 
things. Mere energy, — if such a thing as " mere " energy 
were conceivable, — quantitatively distributed and having its 
law given in terms of the amounts belonging here or there, 
goes only a little way toward explaining this infinite variety 
to the behavior of things. 

Illustrations of this necessity which experience imposes, 
for considering physical energy as differentiating its locality 
and the character of its work according to other ideas than 
those of mere quantity, might be multiplied to any extent. It 
is in the field of the new chemistry of explosives that we are 
just now obtaining the most impressive, near-at-hand exhi- 
bitions of physical energy. But such phenomena cannot be 
explained in accordance with the principle of the conserva- 
tion and correlation of a gross amount of energy, without an 
added special regard to the specific natures and relations of 
the beings that display the energy. That is to say, the 
energy " developed " by the explosion (to use a more appro- 
priate figure of speech), cannot, previous to the transaction 



286 A THEORY OF REALITY 

itself, be said to be stored in the beings that engage in the 
transaction; neither is such energy kinetic so far as any- 
thing is known about the internal movements of these be- 
ings. To illustrate by a single example : Certain compounds 
of Nitrogen, Hydrogen, and Chlorine (as NH 2 C1 and NHC1 2 ), 
are explosives ; while perhaps the most astonishingly explo- 
sive of all compounds is that of Nitrogen and Chlorine, NC1 3 . 
Now Nitrogen and Hydrogen get along comfortably enough 
together, and so do Chlorine and Hydrogen; as in the case 
of NH 3 , or HC1, and other compounds of Chlorine, — all of 
which are eminently stable and " safe. " But the discovery 
of the explosive character of NC1 3 was so dangerous an affair 
that it quite wrecked the health of the chemist who made it, 
through the state of constant anxiety in which he was kept 
by his investigations. 

Now we do not give any adequate explanation of the tre- 
mendous energy displayed by NC1 3 when we merely speak of 
it as " stored " either in the N or in the CI ; or when we de- 
clare it to have been " put into " either of them by effecting 
this combination as NC1 3 . The ultimate fact appears to be 
simply this; somehow the natures of N and of CI are such 
that, when they are for the time being united, they easily part 
company, and develop, in the act of parting and reunion, an 
enormous amount of energy. This idea, or rational explana- 
tion of this complex resultant of the nature of N, of the nature 
of CI, and of the natures of both in their relations to each and 
to the other elements with which they unite on leaving each 
other, is concealed by chemical science under the figurative 
expression, — " chemical affinities." But affinities are never 
mere forces ; they are neither simple qualities nor compound 
qualities that can be distributed ever anew with only due 
regard to the amount of energy distributed. "Affinities" is 
a word which stands for forces that have preferences. Affini- 
ties are exercised by beings that have, belonging to them, 
immanent ideas in control of the forces; and these ideas 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 287 

dictate to the forces the terms on which they shall do their 
specific amounts and kinds of work. And without all this 
equipment of immanent ideas, the behavior of things, chem- 
ically considered, cannot be understood or explained. 

Another illustration of this important metaphysical truth 
may be found in the behavior of every living cell as it ap- 
pears under the microscope, and when considered from the 
modern chemico-physiological points of view. From the 
moment when the cell is quickened (we will suppose it to be 
an egg of the human species), it begins a most mysterious 
process of internal, molecular differentiation. In this work 
of differentiation certain elements from the male combine 
with elements from the female. Much more intricate and 
unmathematical than the behavior of the molecules in the 
formation of a crystal of any particular type is the behavior 
of the elements which have entered into this dual combina- 
tion. By the well-known processes of growth of the individ- 
ual cell, of fission, proliferation, aggregation, segregation, 
etc., with the most marvellous display of industry and in- 
genuity in overcoming difficulties and in handling new mate- 
rial, these accumulating cells build up the finished structure 
of the human body. And now the most highly differenti- 
ated, supremely intricate, and consumingly interesting of 
molecular mechanisms is completed. The completed struc- 
ture is scientifically considered as the resultant of construc- 
tive forces resident in the elements out of which this 
particular body — the human body — is built. Here again, 
however, it must be remembered that, to speak in terms of 
reality, no one entity of a force can be said either to reside 
in the entire structure or to be distributed amongst its mil- 
lions of different parts. How then can the conception which 
regards energy simply as a lamp sum, offering a quantita- 
tive problem to mathematics, account for the actual facts of 
experience ? 

But what, finally, is the significance for a Theory of Real- 



288 A THEORY OF REALITY 

ity which is lent by a critical discussion of the category of 
force ? It seems to us that this question may be partially 
and approximately answered in somewhat the following way. 
In the first place, no rational mind is satisfied with that 
representation of the actual physical world which regards it 
merely as a succession of phenomena of the sensuous order, 
connected together by imaginary links of hypothetical phe- 
nomena. Physical science discloses a real world, where the 
ceaseless play (or work) of mighty forces must be invoked in 
the interests of rational explanation. These forces actually 
belong to the different physical beings of this world consid- 
ered as a total system ; whether these beings are simply con- 
sidered as masses, or as molecules and atoms ; and whether 
the forces are considered as the causes of actual changes in 
the external relations and internal conditions of things, or 
as potencies making possible such changes when the circum- 
stances set free (or set " at work ") the forces. But the 
changes actually effected, and the terms on which we may 
predict changes to take place in the future, are such that an 
ideal unity is obvious in this world of many beings with 
their multiform forces. 

Lotze has well said: " We are only doing honor to a 
ghost when we dream of an absolutely nameless primitive 
force which, formless in itself and consisting of an unnamed 
number of constant amount, assumes as a trifling addition 
that needs no explanation the changing names under which 
it is manifested. " Within certain limits, indeed, the unity 
of the forces may be figuratively regarded as a constant sum, 
— a quantity of One Force which somehow gets stored in the 
different beings of the world, or passed over from one to an- 
other of them. But even thus we are compelled to recognize 
varied forms of relation; several kinds of force, and many 
ways employed by the different beings, of displaying and de- 
veloping their peculiarities of force. The world becomes 
thereby a much higher and richer kind of unity. Indeed, 



FORCE AXD CAUSATION 2«9 

the bewildering complexity of the relations, and the new- 
ness of the phenomena which the progress of science dis- 
covers, bear some direct relation to the advancing high 
character of that unity which our thought ascribes to this 
complexity. When the Being of the World is regarded from 
the point of view of its substantial causality, it appears as a 
Unity of Force that differentiates itself, in respect of kinds 
and relations, so as to produce a marvellous and bewilder- 
ing complexity. Yet over all this complexity there rules so 
much of adherence to form and to law as that the result is a 
Unity of the World which is far more than a mere unity of 
force. But this is to endow the World-Force with manifold 
controlling Ideas. 

Translated into terms of an indubitable experience, what 
is the Reality that corresponds to this description of the 
world in terms of force, and of the conservation and mani- 
fold correlation of physical energy ? Every " moment " of 
this description is an unmistakable factor in the self-known 
Self of the knower. The description is the picture of a Will, 
differentiating itself according to its preferences, under the 
control of forms and laws — or immanent Ideas. Here, in- 
deed, our theory anticipates itself somewhat; for the sig- 
nificance of so-called "forms and laws'' in the world of 
concrete realities still awaits critical examination. But 
that forces which correlate themselves in kind and degree 
with one another, and which thus manage to construct a 
unity that is indescribably rich in variety, are significant 
of One Will, manifesting its immanent ideas in many ways 
while still retaining its own identity, there can be no man- 
ner of doubt. Or, if this be not true, the figures of speech 
employed by human science, as well as by man's ordinary 
knowledge of the world of things in terms of force, are with- 
out intelligible meaning. The movements of physical objects, 
like the gestures of the actor of a pantomime, reveal the Will 
and the Ideas behind : or else they reveal nothing at all. 

19 



290 A THEORY OF REALITY 

In discussing the preceding categories the essence of the 
conception of Cause has been discovered. This conception 
is that of a being in action, when so related to another be- 
ing, as that the action of the one is followed by changes in 
the external relations or internal condition of the other. 
Bluntly expressed, it is the conception of one being doing 
something to another being. Thus construed, its genesis 
and significance have already been, for the present, suffi- 
ciently explained. Even in this earlier and cruder form, 
the conception is complex. But the so-called " law of caus- 
ation," together with the assumptions and thoughts enter- 
ing into it, as these are held by the modern sciences of 
nature, is yet more complex. Ideas of quantity and of num- 
ber, and especially the thought of a uniform and "self-con- 
sistent mode of behavior," enter into these more refined 
forms of this conception. Yet its roots, even in the most 
refined of its forms of application, are deep in the experi- 
ence which has already been described as that of " being a 
substantial cause." 

One's total experience with things, as consisting of ob- 
served changes both in one's self and in them, and of self- 
felt but inhibited activity, contains all the elements for an 
empirical apprehension of the causal relation. Indeed, this 
experience is best described as a knowledge of doing some- 
thing to some other being, and also of having something 
done to one by that other being. The cognition is that of a 
commerce of beings which stand to each other in the relation 
of substantial causes. Beyond this neither scientific curi- 
osity nor metaphysical analysis can take the mind of man. 
This experience of being a substantial cause under variously 
changing relations is itself, the rather, the experience out of 
which all man's scientific and metaphysical explanations are 
actually derived and without which human knowledge would 
not be what it actually is. 

Philosophical theories of causality like those of Hume, 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 291 

Kant, and Mill, as Romanes pointed out, run counter to, 
and are confuted by, the very objectivity of the causal rela- 
tion which all the physical and natural sciences both assume 
as a fundamental principle of their procedure, and also con- 
stantly confirm by all their advance in power to predict and 
in discovery. Growth of experience along the lines of re- 
flective thinking and under the guidance of the principle of 
sufficient reason is necessary in order to generate the com- 
plete conception of causation, — especially as this concep- 
tion is employed in the higher stages of mental development. 
This growth is effected in the manner well described by 
Wundt 1 : "With the empirical apprehension of a causal re- 
lation there is, therefore, uniformly connected the demand 
that the same correspond to a logical relation; since the 
whole causal connection of nature is considered, under the 
presupposition of certain general principles and originally 
given facts, as a unitary, logical system of grounds and con- 
sequences." As we have elsewhere shown, 2 however, this 
"demand" is itself the complex and ever developing result 
of man's reflective interpretation of his collective experi- 
ence. It consists in finding out the rationale of the behavior 
of things, with a growing persuasion which is more and 
more justified by accumulating experience, that things have 
a rationale. It is a finding out of the mind of things, as, 
their mind is shown by their customary modes of behavior. 
In its last result, it is the strong and well fortified convic- 
tion that, somehow, things are all of one mind, since they 
manage to limit and to restrict one another without destroy- 
ing each other completely; indeed, in some large and com- 
prehensive way, things serve certain common ends, and so 
build up the unity of a world-system. 

So indefinite and complex a conclusion as this involves, 
of course, several conceptions which still remain to be ex- 

1 System der Philosophic, p. 302. 

2 " The Principle of Sufficient Reason/' " Philosophy of Knowledge," chap. x. 



292 A THEORY OF REALITY 

amined critically, before they take their place in a completed 
theory of reality. In closing the discussion of the category 
of Force, it is well to notice again carefully the relation, 
both in thought and in reality, of the moments which human 
thinking assigns to "substantiality" and to "causality," re- 
spectively. The substantial being of any thing is thought 
of as requiring some principle, belonging to it, that shall 
prevent the thing from going, in its changes, outside of a 
certain prescribed circle ; or — what is the same conception 
— that shall compel the thing to change its states in a cer- 
tain prescribed order (according to its so-called "nature," 
or immanent idea). Thus A must become only A a , Ap, A y , 
A s . . . A v ; or else it ceases to be the substance A. The 
causal activity and passivity of any being, however, — its 
standing in causal relations, — appears when any particular 
series of changes in A is regarded as dependency connected 
with another series of changes in some other being, B (as, 
for example, B a , Bp, Z? v , B s , . . . B v ). All such series of 
dependent changes, for their complete explanation or refer- 
ence to the complex causes which account for them, require 
an answer to three connected problems. These concern, 
first, the nature of A; second, the nature of B; and, third, 
the relations at present maintaining themselves between A 
and B. But the only way approximately to solve two of 
these three problems is to discover the uniform modes of the 
behavior of both A and B; indeed, uniformity in the modes 
of behavior of any thing affords the only answer to an in- 
quiry after the "nature," or the "essence " of that thing. 

Now, finally, the thought recurs that neither A, nor B, 
nor any other being in the world, is ever known as behav- 
ing according to its own nature, without at the same time 
paying attention to the relations which it sustains to the na- 
ture of other beings. That is to say, man's growing knowl- 
edge of the world is a network of more or less clear and 
definite causal relations amongst the different beings of the 



FORCE AND CAUSATION 293 

world. Viewed in its subjective aspect, this fact shows how 
the variety of otherwise disconnected and chaotic items of 
experience are constructed by the intellect into a system of 
interdependent changes in the external relations and in- 
ternal conditions of its objects. In spite of the constant 
presence of many items of change which refuse to show the 
desired "uniformity of behavior," human science is growing 
firm in the conviction that this limitation belongs to our 
human points of view and human powers of cognition, and 
not to the nature of the objects themselves. Viewed in its 
ontological aspect, all the growth of maris cognitive experience 
reveals the Being of the World as a Unity of Force, that is 
constantly distributing itself amongst the different beings of the 
world so as to bestow on them a temporary qu&si-independence, 
while always keeping them in dependent inter-relations, for the 
realization of its own immanent ideas. 



CHAPTER XI 

MEASURE AND QUANTITY 

It is a well-grounded boast of the physical sciences that 
they are able to furnish an increasingly accurate knowledge 
of the nature and transactions of things. This ability they 
chiefly owe to their use of the arm of mathematics; by its 
aid they are constantly approximating more exact forms of 
statement, and are also conquering new fields of inquiry in 
accordance with the most approved scientific methods. 
For, — to recur to the symbolism employed at the close of 
the last chapter — whenever A and B are " causally related " 
(that is, are dependently connected as respects the changes 
they undergo), the complex problem they afford is solved 
only by stating the exact co-efficients, a, ft, 7, 8, etc., for 
both A and B, and also the value of the X which defines the 
uniform conditions under which they display these coeffi- 
cients. For example, the constitution of water from oxygen 
and hydrogen gases is scientifically established, when we 
know how much of 0, and how much of H, must be made to 
act upon each other ; and also under what definite relations 
this reciprocal action takes place. The more exact our 
measurement and enumeration of all the complex of changes 
which actually occur in the production of H 2 become, the 
more is our science glorified. Measuring and numbering 
belong, therefore, to the very essence of the method of phys- 
ical science. 

But measuring and numbering are mental activities and 
mental achievements ; to measure and to number is, indeed, 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 295 

a very large part of what it is to know — in a way to satisfy 
scientific demands. Physical science, as the knowledge of 
things and of their transactions, assumes it to be beyond ques- 
tion that things are actually measurable and numerable. 

The marked success of the more definitively physical sci- 
ences has combined with other reasons to encourage the use 
of the mathematical method by other more or less closely 
allied sciences. Modern chemistry is distinguished from 
the alchemy out of which it grew, in no other way more ob- 
viously than by its devotion to the niceties of measurement 
and of counting. Its most universal " law, " like the law of 
gravitation, is designed to serve as a general formula for 
reckoning those quantitative relations of things, in which 
the explanation of both their more obvious and their occult 
qualities must be found. To be sure, chemistry does not 
assume to tell us why NH 3 and HC1 are safe, but NC1 3 is 
highly dangerous, except by referring to the u affinities " of 
N, H, and CI, with one another and with other elements in 
the environment. Why these elements have such and no 
other affinities, our science is forced to regard as, at pres- 
ent, an unanswerable question. In general — to use another 
example — why H 2 have the affinities, so stable and mani- 
foldly useful, which they exhibit in this combination; and 
why the physical properties of the compound are such as 
they actually are, etc. — these are questions which teleology, 
and not chemistry, chiefly essays to answer. Meantime, 
refinements of measuring and numbering are the delight and 
the boast of modern chemical science. And apparently the 
hope of her most advanced students is that she will some day 
take her place in this respect, among the most complete of 
the physical sciences. 

It is also proposed to introduce to biology more exactness 
through an improved use of the mathematical method. Psy- 
chology, too, is showing a swelling ambition to take rank 
among the physical sciences, by use of their method for 



* 



296 A THEORY OF REALITY 

counting and measuring the various psychoses and their ele- 
ments. We have here something more than a renewal of 
Herbart's proud claim to constitute this as a natural sci- 
ence, " neu gegrundet avf Urfahrung, Metaphysik und Mathe- 
rnatik." For, in the "new psychology," the " Metaphysic " 
is to be left out, and the "Mathematic" is to be, not an a 
priori theory of combinations of the Vorstellungen on the 
positive and negative sides of a zero-point, but a col- 
lection of exact formulas solidly placed upon an inductive 
basis. 

No conclusion, then, can be more certain than this; if 
things are not " by nature " and " in reality " measurable and 
numerable, modern science has little real truth to tell ; it is 
in no essential way distinguishable from the merely logical 
arrangement of a system of pure mathematical concep- 
tions. We have never held the opinion which refuses to 
such generalizations as cannot state themselves in terms of 
number and quantity all claim to the title "science"; nor 
do we for a moment believe that the numerable and measur- 
able aspect of things is the only aspect open to the cognitive 
powers of man. Nature may, indeed, be made to step upon 
our scales and be weighed, or to stand up against our meas- 
uring rod and have it applied to her. But she is often coy 
about this; and she does not like to be admired simply as 
having so many pounds avoirdupois, or as being so many 
centimetres broad and long. Like the human Self, who 
constructs her in his own image, because he was at the first 
constructed in her image, Nature has an inner life, an 93s- 
thetical and spiritual meaning to reveal. On the other 
hand, the denial that things are somehow in reality what 
science with all its elaborate and refined quantitative esti- 
mates affirms them to be, invalidates this science and ob- 
scures one side of Nature. When Plato proclaimed God the 
great geometer, the philosopher was doubtless in some sort 
true to the inner being and meaning of the world ; although 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 29T 

it does not follow that God is nothing other than a great 
geometer. 

It is impossible even to talk about things, or to deal with 
them in the most essential and practical ways, without meas- 
uring and counting them. What our language thus empha- 
sizes is not primarily the measuring and counting faculty of 
the mind, but the measurable and numerable nature of 
things. And, of course, every man's knowledge of, and in- 
tercourse with, his fellows, is dependent upon some sort of 
a conception as to the nature of unity, and as well upon 
some sort of recognition given to " another " as belonging to 
the same kind. Measuring and numbering of things are in- 
separably connected also with all distinctions between meum 
and tuum, and with all commercial values and commercial 
transactions. But there is little need to illustrate this fact 
of all human experience ; without some sort of numbering and 
measuring knowledge itself is impossible, because no object 
is existent for knowledge. Cognition itself is essentially, 
though by no means exclusively, a process of numbering and 
measuring. In order, then, to understand these categories, 
the psychology of their genesis and development must show 
us on what mental activities and mental postulates they rest. 
But on the basis of such psychological analysis, metaphysi- 
cal criticism must also try to discover what these categories 
reveal as to the real Being of the World. Here, then, are 
two allied problems to be solved : How is it that the human 
mind comes to measure and number the things of its univer- 
sal experience with such confidence in the validity of these 
processes — the applicability of them to Reality ? and, What 
sort of a Reality must that be to which the measuring and 
numbering activities of the human mind, in so far as these 
enter into all its experience with things, can be applied ? The 
answer to the former of these two questions leads up to the 
answer of the latter. The answer of the latter is an integral 
part of a systematic metaphysics. 



298 A THEORY OF REALITY 

It is the concrete beings of the world, known as actually 
existent in space and time, that are measured and num- 
bered. Quantity and number belong to these concrete be- 
ings as essential characteristics of their being at all, — to 
their qualities, their changes, and their relations, under all 
the manifold formal conditions of both the temporal and the 
spatial order. In speaking of things as possessed of differ- 
ent kinds and degrees of force, and in applying to them the 
principle of the conservation and correlation of energy, we 
are obliged either to employ or to imply the categories of 
quantity and of number. Particularly close is the relation 
between this pair of twin categories and the categories of 
space and time. All spatial measurement rests on the ex- 
istence of time, — or, the rather, on the enduring existence 
" in time " of the thing that is measured. All estimate of 
extensive magnitudes is spatial measuring. Even Percep- 
tion of motion, or of change in spatial relations, is impos- 
sible without an active measurement taking place. We can 
apprehend clearly neither quantitative spatial qualities nor 
spatial relations without applying some standard of measure- 
ment, and counting the number of the applications made in 
the mastery of the complete dimensions of the thing or of its 
distance from other things. All such apprehension of things 
and of their relations is, of necessity, subject to the formal 
categories of space and time. 

From the obscurity and confusion of the dawn of knowl- 
edge, in the individual and in the race, emerge the twin 
conceptions, quantity and number, hand in hand. In the 
development of the majority of minds they never get far into 
the fields of a sun-clear and consistent system. But in 
certain minds, conceptions of quantity and number become 
so articulated and unfolded as to form a logical whole, 
unmatched by any other kind of human knowledge, for 
tenacity, clearness, and consistency. Such an evolution of 
" pure " mathematics is one of the most astonishing and sig- 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 299 

nificant achievements of human reason. By the masters of 
this system the uninitiated are assured that their demonstra- 
tions of what mast he, if only something else that is numer- 
able and measurable be taken for granted, have a cogency 
which no rational mind can resist; and yet these demon- 
strations concern matters so unlike any entities or relations 
of ordinary experience that not fifty men on the face of the 
globe can even comprehend them. No one of us — writer or 
readers — alas ! can hope to be of this privileged number. 
But, as students of metaphysics, we can ask : What has such 
a wonderful network of conceptions to tell us touching the 
Nature of Reality ? 

The psychological genesis and development of the concep- 
tion of quantity, and the way that this conception is gained 
and grows by the activity of measuring, affords a most inter- 
esting and significant study. 1 A brief notice of several im- 
portant points will suffice for the present purpose. The 
fundamental fact of experience involved in all such concep- 
tions is this; there are variations in the "how-much" of 
our psychoses, and the intellect actively discriminates, asso- 
ciates, and compares the psychoses as regarded in this aspect 
of their change. That mental processes, as such, do vary 
quantitatively, is as primary and incontestable a fact of ex- 
perience as is the other closely-related fact, that they vary 
in respect of content or complex quality. The view which 
regards all measurement as fundamentally applicable only 
to thing-objects, and as subsequently applied in a purely 
figurate way to psychoses, reverses the order of procedure 
in the evolution of mental life. These most primitive quan- 
titative variations of sense-consciousness are probably, how- 
ever, variations of intensity and not originally of " extensity " 
or "massiveness." But the admission of the claim put for- 
ward by some psychologists, that a sort of obscure and un- 

1 On this compare the monographs of Nichols, " The Psychology of Time," 
and " Number and Space." 



300 A THEORY OF REALITY 

measured " bigness " belongs, natively, to all modifications 
of sense-consciousness, would not change the bearing of this 
experience upon our metaphysics of quantity. The impor- 
tant point for a Theory of Reality to notice is this : the dif- 
ferent pulses of that stream of consciousness we come to 
know as the Self do actually vary in the intensities belong- 
ing to them. The life of the Self does " in reality " rise and 
fall, increase and diminish, in the amount of that being 
which it, by the grasp of consciousness, knows itself to have. 
Otherwise expressed : The Being of the World actually vouch- 
safes to you and to me, at different moments of our life in time r 
differing amounts of its own being. 

Furthermore, the mind is immediately aware of this vari- 
ation in the intensities of its own psychoses. By activity of 
the same discriminating intellect by which we become aware 
of all changes in the stream of consciousness, we discern 
these alterations of intensity in the different temporal por- 
tions of this stream. This more primitive measurement is 
obscure and indefinite ; it is only a vague awareness of more 
or less of the similar, when the present is compared with the 
just passing, or with the now expected, phase of conscious- 
ness. Long before the infant can "put its toe into the pain," 
it discovers and meets with characteristic expectation, or 
retrospect, the swelling or the subsiding of the pain. These 
changes of intensity are for it the important thing, and not 
the exact place in which to locate its pain. These varying 
"feeling-tones" which emphasize its interest in the waxing 
and waning of the pressure-sensations, or the sensations of 
sound or of light, furnish an attractive point of regard for 
the earliest discriminating activity. 

It is not necessary to trace the steps of that psychological 
development by which the vague and indefinite quantita- 
tive measurement of closely approximate psychoses becomes 
a vague and indefinite measurement of the extension, the 
forces, and the spatial relations of things. The history of 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 301 

these steps involves all of that marvellous and fundamentally 
inexplicable experience by which the mind obtains the clear 
knowledge of a world in which the Self exists as separate 
from, and yet related to. an environment of many self-like 
and non-self-like things. In all this history it is the growth 
of skill in discriminating the minutest differences of quan- 
tity in our own psychoses which fixes the limitations for all 
our actual measurements of real things. It is practice in 
such discrimination which guarantees my friend, the professor 
of physics, when he assures me that he can with unaided eye 
place a spider's web more exactly in the middle between two 
others than is possible by using any micrometrical instru- 
ment. When the physicist uses any instrument for measure- 
ment, what does he employ as the ultimate standard for his 
knowledge of relations of quantity ? Only the same discrim- 
inating consciousness which, under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances, can measure with amazing accuracy changes in its 
own phases. — quantitatively considered. For. as Volkmann 
admirably observes. 1 the magnitude of the subjective spatial 
series is not directly comparable with the magnitude of the 
object-thing; and our estimate of magnitude always becomes 
uncertain, just as soon as the opportunity to compare it with 
the familiar magnitudes belonging to our sensation-complexes 
is removed. Moreover, a great variety of changeable inter- 
ests and forms of emotion furnish impulses, checks, and 
guides, in the development of all mental measurement and 
in the consequent conceptions of magnitude. Psychologically 
. idered, then, all actual measurement of real quantities con- 
sists in the self -appreciation of the varying amounts of the own- 
life of the Self 

But in respect of this category of quantity as of all the 
other categories, the mind cannot persuade itself that the 
conception has a merely subjective origin and applicability. 
For here, as in all other use of human faculties, we speedily 

1 Lehrtmcli der Psvchologie, II., p. 99 f. 



302 A THEORY OF REALITY 

cease to regard the subjective changes as belonging to the 
known reality, and concentrate attention upon making gains 
of verifiable objective knowledge. How nicely can one dis- 
tinguish differences of intensity in the sensations, under pre- 
cisely such favorable or unfavorable circumstances ? — this is 
a question for the psychological laboratory. The world of 
men will never come to take much interest in such a ques- 
tion for its own sake. But how much does this material 
shrink under so many degrees of cold ? is the question of the 
builder of houses and bridges. What are the actual atomic 
weights of the different elements ? is the inquiry of chemical 
science. It is the measurement of things, not of sensations, 
which is of most practical and theoretical importance in the 
estimate of men. Such measurement cannot be accomplished 
without reference to some objective standard; and the use 
of such an objective standard, with the assumptions and the 
arguments involved, with its temporary failures and its bril- 
liant successes, is full of most important lessons for the 
metaphysician. 

The first truth to be noticed in considering the nature of 
all objective measurement is this: such measurement is al- 
ways an affair of relations ; it is a relating activity on the 
mind's part, which implies, however, some sort of a correla- 
tion belonging to the real being and actual arrangement of 
the things measured. In its earlier forms this objective 
measurement is a vague and uncertain affair ; it is chiefly 
adapted to, and enforced by, the simpler practical ends of 
life. The groping of the infant in its effort to discover the 
correct reach of the hand, which will bring to its grasp the 
coveted object, is an example in place here. In all its 
developing experience with things, the child's mind is "siz- 
ing them up " — if such a phrase may be pardoned ; it is 
discovering whether they will fit its mouth, fill its hand, 
inclose or match one another ; and how far one must creep 
or walk to obtain possession of them. So far as these more 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 303 

primitive measurements are accomplished by the eye, there 
is comparatively little motif to introduce the conception of 
force as the "stuff" which is being measured. But with 
the knowledge of things that comes through the tactual, mus- 
cular, and joint sensations, the case is not the same. In 
these ways the infantile physicist is constantly measuring 
his force against the resisting or the active forces of things. 
Every time he throws a stone or a ball, or wrestles with his 
playfellow, he gets a new lesson in popular dynamics. And 
few things are of more vital interest to him than the correct- 
ness of his calculation of the amounts of forces which nature 
has assigned to the different objects of his daily experience. 
Thus his quantitative calculations become surprisingly exact, 
whenever the problem concerns merely somewhat indefinite, 
increase or diminution in the amounts of the things in which 
he is interested. This fact of experience corresponds with 
the well-known psycho-physical law which controls the mind's 
appreciation of the varying quantities of sensation-conscious- 
ness, the use of mental images of past sensations as standards 
of measurement, and the conditions which favor or hinder 
the exactness of such appreciation in particular instances. 
Great sensitiveness in these more primitive quantitative 
estimates, in the case of children and of savages, for a long 
time precedes the self-conscious and rational affair of learn- 
ing to count. 

Let it be noticed, also, what are the things that are meas- 
ured — the existent "that-which, " to which the measuring 
process is thus naively applied. That which is thus meas- 
ured is threefold. It is, first, the extension of things — 
their size, as relative to one another and to our purposes re- 
garding them; second, it is the distance of things, as rela- 
tive to us {teller e ice are) and to one another, and as bearing 
upon the actual or expected relations existing amongst them, 
and between us and them ; third, it is the forces of things, 
as the hidden causes of the actual or expected changes of 



304 A THEORY OF REALITY 

these relations. The empirical basis for the doctrine of 
geometry and of mass comes from the first and second of the 
three ; the theory of dynamics and the law of the conserva- 
tion and correlation of energy, comes from the third. But 
all three forms of measurement are bound together and, as 
it were, made available for both practical and theoretical 
purposes by the universal fact of motion. Psychologically 
considered, it is only with moving organs that we measure ; 
active measuring is a function which requires the entire 
self, — imagination, intellect, feeling, will, — dominating 
and guiding the organism under the impulse to secure certain 
ends. Were you and I not real beings, organically somehow 
connected with the changing texture of the universe of being, 
.so as both to change it and to be changed by it, we should 
never " measure " ourselves or other things. Geometry, phy- 
sics, etc., — all measurement is born as the child of a mind 
that is in living commerce with things. "The limits of 
space," it has been well said, "are for us simply the limits 
of possible motion of a material body. " 2 This space of three 
dimensions, in which all actual known motions occur, and 
all conceivable motions must be imagined, is that in which 
the axioms of the Euclidean plane geometry, as popularly 
conceived of, are true. It is our experience with this actual 
complex differentiation of reality in which our conceptions 
of measure and quantity are matured. 

Such vague and unchecked measurement as has just been 
described does not, however, form a satisfactory basis for a 
true quantitative science of things. Although it must not be 
forgotten that nine-tenths of man's actual cognitive experi- 
ence with things — their sizes, distances, weights, forces, 
and whatever belonging to them is measurable — is of this 
vague and unrecorded sort. Yet how accurate it can be 
trained to be; every letter-sorter on the flying mail-car, 

1 See the Presidential Address of Professor Simon Newcomb, Bulletin of the 
Am. Mathematical Society, 2d Series, vol. iv. No. 5. 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 305 

every skilled huntsman, or expert ball-player, demonstrates 
as truly as does the physicist with his superb and justifiable 
confidence in his unaided visual discriminations. Nor 
must it be forgotten that a very subtle and profound theory 
of rational correlation between the Self and Things, with an 
assumed uniformity in obedience to law, and a steady confor- 
mity to ideal ends on the part of both is implied in this 
natural use of the category of quantity. 

It has been said that all measurement is relative. Now 
"the relative" implies the existence of a standard and its 
application to a number of objects. In the more primitive 
forms of measurement the standard is some mental image, 
revivable — so it is assumed — in a fairly constant way. But 
the more purely subjective means are found to be, as might 
be expected, variable and deceptive ; and although they may 
be rendered exceedingly accurate and serviceable for certain 
individualistic and special kinds of practice, they are not 
trustworthy as commonly accepted standards for human 
intercourse. Nor will subjective standards do at all as a 
foundation on which to erect the superstructure of mathe- 
matical and physical science. The physicist can handle his 
spider-webs better without than with the use of a rule marked 
off in fractions of millimetres, but he cannot be trusted as a 
sorter of letters ; and neither he nor the mail agent is willing 
to purchase his ell of cloth by having it measured on the 
dealer's arm. Hence the necessity for accepted and trust- 
worthy objective standards. The history of the rise, adop- 
tion, and perfection of such standards of relative quantity 
is very instructive ; but it is not necessary to our argument 
that we should follow it. 

A speculative question arises at this point which is of some 
interest to a metaphysical discussion of the category of quan- 
tity. This question is not infrequently proposed by physi- 
cists in the interests of the accuracy and constancy of their 
own results. The standard of measurement which they have 

20 



306 A THEORY OF REALITY 

adopted is the calculated length of a selected great circle of 
the earth. But the size of the earth is undoubtedly slowly 
changing; and with it, of course, must go on a change in the 
standard adopted for all physical measurements. In case, 
then, an appeal to experience is made at any time for cor- 
recting this standard, all sizes and distances, as measured by 
this standard, will have to change in relation to it, if they 
themselves remain constant quantities. But in such a case 
these changes of relation, when taken to the standard, would 
reveal themselves; and thus warned, we should be enabled 
to know as to what had really changed, and as to the propor- 
tions in which the observed changes in relation should be 
distributed amongst the different things. For example, we 
should know whether the reason why the distance from the 
sun to the earth was now measured by fewer kilometers than 
formerly was to be found in the fact that the kilometer had 
grown relatively longer, or in the fact that the earth and sun 
had drawn nearer together. Let it be supposed, however, that 
all things in the universe, so far as they come under human 
observation, including the bodies of men and the intensities 
of sensations in the flowing stream of consciousness, are 
changing their quantity in the same direction, but with such 
nice continuance of the adjustment amongst their long- 
established and well-known relations that no change in the 
relations themselves is observable. The real universe would 
then be actually growing smaller and smaller, indeed; it 
would be shrinking to the size of a nutshell ; but all things 
in the universe would retain the same relative sizes, dis- 
tances, etc. How should we know that such startling changes 
in the Nature of Reality were actually taking place ? How 
do we know that this is not what is now taking place ? 

In answer to such puzzles as the foregoing, three observa- 
tions are of interest from the metaphysical point of view. 
In the first place, all measurement of things is conducted 
under conditions set to man's mental representation of the 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 307 

world as a system of concrete existences in time and space. 
The application of every standard, as well as the constitution 
of the standard itself, belongs to his mental "picture " of the 
world. Now, inasmuch as this mental picture, considered 
space-wise, is no mere photograph or express copy of the 
trans-subjective, all that it is essential for the Reality to be, 
and to do, is included in the continuance of the relations in 
such manner as to realize in things its own immanent ideas. 
For, of course, measurement of things, their temporal and 
spatial qualities and relations, as well as their manifold 
seizures and losses of the One all-pervading Force, is neces- 
sarily a relative affair. Subjectively considered, measure- 
ment is relating. Absolute size, absolute distance, or bulk, 
or force, as applied to particular things, has no meaning. 
All objective measurement of the world as it appears to us, 
in its time-form and space-form, is also, in its very essence, 
relative. But, second : the relativity of all man's use of the 
category of quantity does not diminish, but rather increases, 
the necessity for placing this very relativity — considered 
both as fact and as a network of laws or uniform ways of 
relating and being related — upon a trans-subjective ground. 
There must be something in the constitution and behavior of 
things, that makes them relatable in terms of a standard 
common to all ; and this, in spite of the constant and infinite 
processes of change that are going on in these relations. 
Whether certain particular things are swelling and others 
shrinking, and this in such a way as to preserve some con- 
stant standard of measurement, or not, does not essentially 
affect our valid conclusions as to the inner and the constant 
nature of Reality. And, third : in being known as measur- 
able at all, the World reveals itself as a rational totality, a 
system of beings actually conforming in all the varied 
changes of their measurable and calculable relations to ideal 
forms. In this way the objects of man's cognitive experi- 
ence are made to constitute an ideal Unity, which comprises 



308 A THEORY OF REALITY 

an infinite variety of different beings that are comparable 
and capable of being known as quantitatively related in the 
mind's pictorial representation of things. 

This third and most important tenet of the metaphysics of 
quantity is made clearer, more forceful, and comprehensive, 
by a study of the "science " of measurement and of spatial 
relations, as such. In the development of this science the 
most important psychical activities are the imagination to 
construct the points of departure, and the logic which con- 
nects together into chains of demonstration the abstract 
ideas thus obtained. If these ideas are more directly gath- 
ered from our sensuous experience with concrete things under 
the limitations of the space-picturing imagination, and are 
placed in their simplest relations to one another, we have the 
so-called " axioms " of the Euclidean geometry (comp. p. 304). 
The demonstrations of this geometry then follow in a logical 
way, with the constant possibility of an appeal to experience 
for their illustration and verification by a process of progres- 
sive approximation to an absolute exactness. But when these 
ideas are converted into pure abstractions, the different pos- 
sible relations of these abstract conceptions become the so- 
called "postulates" of the modern geometry. 

The demand of the Euclidean geometry is that we should 
envisage the simplest conditions of our mental picture of 
spatial relations and see that the thing is so. This envis- 
agement will make the several fundamental propositions 
"self-evident," — a small collection of axioms; because the 
mind cannot help seeing that such are the relations which 
exist between the different elements of its space-picture of 
the world. Such so-called "axioms," however, have no 
self-evidencing power, if the attempt is made to apply them 
to the relations of real beings considered independently of 
this pictorial representation. But the modern geometry, in 
its theory of measurement, strives to free itself from all sen- 
suous conditions. Its points of starting are, therefore, 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 309 

lated rather than deemed axiomatic in the sense of the latter 
word which is assumed to be true for the fundamental prin- 
ciples of the Euclidean geometry. Choosing freely its postu- 
lates, the purely abstract science then proceeds to construct 
a logical system of conclusions, all of which state those rela- 
tions between certain abstract conceptions which follow 
necessarily from the postulates chosen as points of starting. 
The Euclidean geometry assumes that the relations actually 
existing amongst the different spatial " moments " of reality 
are, of necessity, precisely similar to man's pictorial repre- 
sentation of the world in space. It is the geometry of 
the senses and of the sensuous imagination; it is that 
"pure" science of space relations which can be taught to 
the common-sense consciousness. Its " purity " consists in 
its freedom from the particular limitations of the sensuous 
imagination, the "h'gurate conception " of the spatial rela- 
tions and spatial qualities of things. But Kant was justified 
in pointing out that it is a priori only for our " assthetical " 
experience. It does not, of itself, tell us anything as to the 
inner nature of the trans-subjective ground on which its own 
pictorial representation reposes. The modern geometry, on 
the other hand, makes no claim to demonstrate what the 
spatial qualities and spatial relations of real things must be ; 
and it does not ask to have its fundamental postulates veri- 
fied as self-evident in terms of figurate conception. It says : 
" Come, let us make all sorts of assumptions as to the values 
of x and y, in our setting forth of hypothetical space-rela- 
tions ; let us give ourselves all manner of subtle and fascin- 
ating problems for solution on the basis of a choice among 
these assumptions ; and then let us see where strict logical 
argumentation will bring us out in conclusion. " The perti- 
nent and important metaphysical truth is this : Both the 
Euclidean and the modern geometry assume the significant 
principle that the Reality which manifests itself within, and 
to, the mind of man, in its actively measuring and reasoning, is 



310 A THEORY OF EEALITY 

itself constructed as a logical, rational, and Self -consistent 
System. , 

None of the "self-evident" propositions on which the 
ordinary geometry founds its system of demonstrations are 
" synthetic judgments " a priori, in the meaning given by 
Kant to those words. The predicate in these propositions 
does not add something wholly new to the subject; nor is 
the genesis of the judgment, or the mind's confidence in it, 
independent of all concrete experience with actual objects. 
On the contrary, the office of the judgment itself is to pro- 
nounce the result of our intuition of the space qualities and 
space relations of the things known by sense-perception, 
after these qualities and relations have been subjected to 
the refinements of imagination and intellect ; and this result 
is stated. by the judgment in the form of an identical and 
self-consistent proposition. 

The clearness;, cogency, and consistency, of that system 
of connected propositions which can be made to follow from 
the so-called axiomatic points of starting adopted by the 
Euclidean geometry, is due to the nature of the material with 
which the logical faculties have to deal. This material is 
• composed of a certain number of conceptions whose marks 
are perfectly apprehensible and definitely capable of being 
separated from all those interdependent conditions which 
determine the complex changes of actual things. Relations 
of real things are infinitely complicated, and they cross each 
other in an indefinite number of ways; actual relations are 
a tangled network of relations. This is true of every sim- 
plest and meanest thing, and of every most common and in- 
significant transaction between things. Every " Thing " is a 
concrete realization of all the categories; it partakes of the 
whole throbbing and striving life of nature ; and every trans- 
action between things is an epitome of the history of the 
universe. But the spatial qualities and spatial relations of 
things are themselves related, and these relations between 



MEASURE AXD QUANTITY 311 

the spatial qualities and spatial relations of things are totally 
different in respect of the problems they propose. They 
constitute the science of " space" (or geometry), which thus 
differs essentially from every form of applied science; its 
complications are matters not of observed fact but of logical 
arrangement mainly. For example, no biologist can even 
make a beginning toward expounding the demonstrative 
science of a single amoeba; but if this science could be com- 
pletely expounded by one gifted with the power of clear de- 
scription, we might all hope to understand it. There are, 
however, huge volumes which contain the demonstrative 
science of certain systems of space relations ; and the funda- 
mental conceptions of these volumes we could all understand, 
but few there be that can understand the complexity of the 
arguments employed in arranging these conceptions. Yet 
the forms of argument which all geometrical treatises employ 
are taken from the fundamental rules of reasoning, as these 
rules apply to every kind of material which the intellect of 
man can make the subject of argument. 

The "geometrical axioms," then, which furnish the points 
for the departure of all the trains of reasoning employed, are 
special and are derived from the nature of things viewed as 
having space qualities and as existing in space relations 
merely. But the "general axioms " of geometry are such as 
belong to all use of the reasoning faculty. The possibility of 
a science either " pure " or applied, by combination of the 
two forms of axioms enforces anew the same ontological 
principle : The mental representation of things in space is 
indeed subjective and relative ; but its subjectivity reposes 
upon the trans-subjective Ground of an ideal and rational 
Nature ivhich belongs to the entire system of things. 

The true metaphysical doctrine of the measurement of 
space, with its resulting doctrine of quantity as applied to 
realities, may fitly be illustrated by one or two examples. 
Let, first, the so-called axiom concerning the properties of 



312 A THEORY OF REALITY 

straight lines be examined from our point of view. If the 
old-fashioned way of bringing to notice this so-called self- 
evident proposition be adopted, the judgment certainly 
appears to be neither synthetic nor a priori in the Kantian 
sense. For the proposition that "a straight line is the 
shortest distance between any two points " is, undoubtedly, 
a purely analytic or identical proposition. What is meant 
by the act of sense-perception, or of sensuous imagination, 
which enables 113 to intuit or to construct a straight line, is 
precisely this, — a line so perceived or imagined that it 
runs by the shortest path, and without the least bit of turn- 
ing out, from one point to another in space. "Draw me a 
straight line from a to b " means nothing else than this : — 
proceed with your chalk, or pencil, or with your imaginary 
moving point, directly from a to b. In general, the idea of 
the shortest path is identical with the idea of the straight 
path. And " straight-line " = in quantity "shortest-line," 
is only another way of saying that a straight line is, when 
considered quantitatively, and compared with all other lines, 
the shortest of them all. 

Moreover, when the effort is made to test this so-called 
axiom, we see not only that both of its terms express the 
same idea, but also that neither the subject nor the predicate 
of the judgment can be represented in idea, without the 
mind's relating activity at once connecting the two under the 
form of identity. For the idea of a " straight line " has no 
content except by comparison with lines that are not straight; 
and beyond doubt, the " shortest distance " means nothing 
unless a contrast with longer distances is implied. Suppose, 
then, it is proposed to test the so-called axiom in a given 
instance. Let our problem be to determine whether this 
straight line which we have just drawn between a and b is 
really shorter than any other possible line between the same 

two points. How shall we know that this line a b is 

straight ? Only by comparing it with other actual or imag- 



MEASURE AND QUANTITY 313 

nary lines that crook or curve. How shall we know that 
the same line is shorter than any of the crooked or curved 
lines ? Only by measuring it and them with the unaided eye 
or with some standard of measurement. Now for practical 
purposes our sensitiveness to differences in the length of 
lines, and to any departure of lines from a straight course, 
may be assumed to be about equal. Theoretically and actu- 
ally, too, when it comes to the utmost niceties of measure- 
ment, this is not precisely true. But the fact is that if, in 
the act of measuring the line a b, in order to test its fidelity 
to the terms of the axiom, it is discovered to be either crook- 
ing and curving at any point, or failing in " being short, " it 
is promptly rejected as not an example under the axiom. 
And if, by an act of imagination, the mind passes beyond all 
the limits of an actual testing of the character of the line 
a h, the same experience is found to hold good. I cannot 
imagine this line to deviate infinitesimally from the straight 
path without imagining, at the place of deviation, another 
and perfectly straight path which would take the point trac- 
ing the line by a shorter course to its desired goal. 

Suppose now, however, this so-called axiom be thrown 
into its more appropriate and useful form; and let the state- 
ment of the truth previously employed be relegated to the 
place of a definition. We are then told that " through every 
two points in space one and only one straight line may be 
drawn." This statement reduces the axiom to the form of a 
postulate, — an asking of us to grant the possibility of draw- 
ing — in imagination, of course — a straight line between 
any two points in space. The words " one and only one " are 
entirely superfluous ; for the definition of a straight line is 
"the shortest," and to think of more than one "shortest" is 
absurd. The postulated possibility of drawing one straight 
line between any two points in space is, for our mental repre- 
sentation of space, a self-evident but tautological proposition. 
For if. the ends of a line are defined as " points, " then any 



814 A THEORY OF REALITY 

two imaginary points may, of course, be imagined as the 
ends of any number of imaginary lines. For mere situation 
or mere distance in space has no power to prevent the imagi- 
nation from drawing lines; the rather is the very nature of 
our mental representation of space such as to insure the possi- 
bility of a perfectly free activity of imagination in this kind 
of play. Between any a and any b an indefinite number of 
paths of connection lie open to the imagination. And, of 
course, one of these is the straight and shortest path which 
starts the line with one end in a and lands it with the other 

in b. This is the straight line a b. 

Similar conclusions are reached, though by a somewhat 
more complicated use of the powers of perception, imagina- 
tion, and reasoning, with regard to another so-called axiom, 
or postulate, of geometry. On the straight line A B, at any 
two points, let the two perpendiculars A (7 and B D be erected ; 
at points equidistant from A and B let these perpendiculars 
be crossed by a straight line connecting the points (7 and D; 
and let the length of the line A B = x, and the length of the 
line CD = y: then^ = ?/. Now how do we know this ? The 
proposition may be said to be axiomatic, or self-evident, to 
sense-perception and to imagination; but only after a some- 
what complex exercise of these faculties has been performed 
under control from those "general axioms" which apply to 
all our reasoning processes. Finally, however, the result 
comes to an identical judgment which is based upon inspec- 
tion of the spatial relations of objects. If either of the 
lines, A and B D, leans in the slightest degree toward or 
away from the other, the postulate is violated. But if noth- 
ing of this sort happens, then, of course, the two lines will 
remain the same distance apart; and other lines which 
measure this distance will themselves be of equal length. 
For by "distance between two lines," under the circum- 
stances postulated here, we mean nothing else than the paths 
traversed by the line A B between the points A and B, and 



MEASURE AXD QUANTITY 315 

by the line C D between the points C and D. This is equiv- 
alent to saying, x = y. 

If now it were desired to submit this so-called axiom to 
testing by any particular example, it would be necessary to 
watch for any " leanings " in either of the perpendiculars 
A C and B D. and for all crookings and curvings in the lines 
A B and CD. Here, again, for ordinary practical purposes, 
our sensitiveness to the leanings of the perpendiculars and 
to the consequent shortening or lengthening of the connect- 
ing lines may be assumed to be about equal. But, theoreti- 
cally and actually, too, as tested by the niceties of experi- 
mental methods, the relations between the least perceptible 
differences of the angles of the parallelogram, and the least 
perceptible differences of the lines forming its sides, are ex- 
ceedingly complex and variable. But if I once free the axiom 
from the limitations of sense, I cannot imagine the lines 
A C and B D being any nearer together without leaning, i. e. 9 
beginning to get nearer together. 'When a carpenter, for 
instance, wishes to apply this axiom to the making of a 
table's top, he uses his square both to '"right" the angles 
and to measure the sides. Only as he makes both these 
measurements does he construct the shape and size correctly. 
He thus illustrates his appreciation of the self-evident and 
tautological character of the geometrical judgments in- 
volved : Under all such relations of angles and straight lines 
to one another, x = g. 

The modern geometry, however, in its striving for an ex- 
tension of the " purity " of its system of connected proposi- 
tions, starts from a postulated rather than from an intui- 
tively perceived proposition. Three possible cases, it says, 
may occur; but only three. These are, x—y\ x~>y\ and 
x < y. Each of these three may be made, if once postulated, 
the point of starting for divergent systems of space relations, 
so far as such relations are determinable from this particular 
point of starting. But in thus changing the axiom to a 



316 A THEORY OF REALITY 

postulate, and then introducing three cases of the postulate, 
geometry falls back upon the incontestable validity of the 
" general axioms " which apply to all human reasoning. 
Otherwise, how does it know that these three cases exhaust 
all the possible postulates; that x must either equal y, or 
be greater than y, or less than y ? And how does it know 
that we may reason about x and y at all ? 

In similar fashion, all mathematical figures may be re- 
garded as mere hypotheses by which experience is reconciled 
with the fundamental laws of intellect through the help of 
the schematizing power of the imagination. Thus, on the 
one side, geometrical lines and figures are made copies which 
are taken from sensuous experience ; on the other side, they 
are abstract relations which are assumed by the intellect, 
in order to bring the system of them into absolute agreement 
with the demands of logic. 1 

In passing to the discussion of the allied conception of 
number, we may be pardoned for calling attention again to 
the truths of metaphysical import which the discussion of 
the conception of quantity has evoked. Man's actual meas- 
urements of the world of things are all, indeed, subjective 
and relative ; he selects his standards and his points of view, 
and thus calculates, or discerns, in terms applicable from 
one to another, the spatial qualities and relations of the 
objects of his cognitive experience. This he does in the 
carrying out of his practical ends — including in the word 
"practical," the progressive mastery of the geometrical 
science of things. All geometrical propositions are, there- 
fore, applicable to the mental representation of the world of 
objects as in space, and from the point of view which regards 
their extensive magnitude only. But man also measures the 
amounts of physical energy — the actual work accomplished, 
or work potentially implicated — which belong to things. 
This measuring, too, is equally subjective and relative. And 

1 Compare Caspari, " Grundprobleme der Erkenntiiissthatigkeit," II., p. 217 f. 



MEASURE AKD QUANTITY BIS 

both kinds of the application of the loctrine :: quantity 
made possible by his experience with the facts :: motion as 
regulated by the laws of motion — whether theoretical and 

ased on the nature of space, or based on observation of the 
actual changes : things in sj ace. 

All man's -:irnce of quanri:~. however, implies an import- 
ant ontoiogical truth as to the actual nature of things. Other- 
wise this so-called science is not knowledge : — much less is 
it ~uat peculiarly convincing form of knowledge to which 
th e name of a scienc e " is [ r : [ e : 1 : s : ; i : I e 3 . Thus what is 
implied in our use of the categories of space and of forco. is 

:: Tended in the same direction by what is implied in the facts 
of measurement and in the category of quantity. The vorld 
is known as a system : quantitatively comparable and meas- 
urable, concrete realities. To affirm this is to en low the 
world w::h :::;". I : : :1 r:.:i ;uol nature — $j ;": * f: ~ : . o::_ r 
the analogy of our own. The "pure" and the "applie 1 " 
science of measurement and of quantity is. indeed, anthropo- 
morphic. It applies to the envisaged pictures of particu- 
lar thina- extended in space and enduring in tima E at i: 
is also knowledge of a Reality over which mind rules in the 
disposition and distribution of the one Being and Force :: 
the world. 



CHAPTER XII 

NUMBER AND UNITY 

That some kind of numbering, as an activity and achieve- 
ment of the human mind, is necessary in order to the rudest 
objective measurement has already been implied in discuss- 
ing the category of quantity. For it is by comparison of 
discrete things with one another, or by successive applica- 
tion of some one thing, as a standard, to other things — their 
extensions or their distances — that all genuine measure- 
ment takes place. In estimating amounts of physical force 
also, some " unit " of force must be employed ; and this in- 
volves at least a naive and crude conception of number. In 
all those more accurate measurements which not only science 
but also the successful intercourse of men demands, the 
precise and intelligent use of the acquired power to number 
is indispensable. Both the making and the recording of 
measurements, and the whole theory of quantity are depend- 
ent upon refinements in those conceptions with which arith- 
metic and the allied developments of mathematics deal. The 
science of geometry — " the science of space " — can advance 
to conquer the new fields that lie opening before it only as it 
secures support from the developed technique of the science 
of arithmetic — ■ the " science of number. " 

As the mental process of measuring lays its emphasis upon 
discrimination of the qualities and relations of things in 
space, so the mental process of numbering emphasizes dis- 
crimination of the order of occurrences in time. . Thus the 
categories of space and time are, both of them, illustrated; 



NUMBER AND UNITY 319 

and the conceptions of spatial and temporal relations are de- 
veloped in dependence upon the rise and growth of concep- 
tions both of quantity and of number. The one fact of expe- 
rience upon which all this mental activity is, so to speak, 
expended, is the fact of change constantly going on in the 
world of spatially and temporally related objects. Motion 
in space, estimated under the category of time — this is 
necessary to all actual measurement of the transactions 
going on amongst things. And as the estimate of amounts of 
motion is taking place, the process of counting goes on. 
The " counted-up " quantitative " moments " of the motion, 
as they follow each other in the moments of time, give the 
solution of the problem of measurement. 

Counting is the essence of all numbering; and — essen- 
tially considered — all science of numbers is nothing but 
counting. We have the clew, then, to those reflections with 
which the category of number furnishes the searcher after a 
system of metaphysics, when we have asked and answered 
these two questions : What is the psychological genesis and 
nature of the mental process of counting ?. and what is impli- 
cated, as to the ultimate nature of Reality, in the accepted 
fact that the concrete realities of experience can be counted ; 
and yet that they can be so counted only as parts, or 
"moments," in the unity of the system ? In the attempt to 
deal with this second inquiry all the ultimate problems of 
metaphysics are involved. For the conception of "Unity" 
— and without this scientific numbering is impossible — ■ is 
so important, so fundamental, and yet so comprehensive and 
variable, that he who understands what it is to be One and 
yet many has the key to some of the most profound secrets 
of the universe. 

The nature of the mental processes involved in counting, 
and thus in the genesis and development of conceptions of 
number, is not especially obscure. There are, to be sure, 
certain points about which a difference of opinion may fairly 



320 A THEORY OF REALITY 

exist; but the main features of these processes are, we be- 
lieve, the following. The "stream of consciousness," al- 
though it has, as a rule, the continuity of a stream, and 
although no portion of that stream can be considered as 
independent of all other portions (especially of those most 
nearly contiguous), is divisible into so-called "states." 
This division is not to be effected by forces lying outside of 
the stream itself ; it is rather dependent upon concentration 
of the force of attentive and discriminating consciousness, 
considered as belonging to the subject of the states. Or, to 
abandon this figure of speech, the Self does not discern its 
own states as in any way separable from itself or from one 
another, by contemplating and manipulating them from with- 
out; neither are the states self-separable entities, or quali- 
ties of beings not identical with the life of the Self. The 
different variations in the characteristic content, complex- 
ity, and intensity of consciousness, both determine and are 
determined by the accompanying pulsations of attentive 
discrimination. Thus the Self, as always both active and 
passive, the constructor and the observer of its own states, 
is self -known as a unity and as a discrete manifoldness as 
well. But both the unity and the discrete manifoldness of 
the Self are subject to the formal category of time. My 
life, my very being, is a succession of connected and inter- 
dependent states which have the unity they possess given to 
them by self-consciousness, recognitive memory, and as a 
development, under the control of immanent ideas. 

That kind of the succession of conscious states, in time, 
which most stimulates, favors, and demands, the early exer- 
cise of the faculty of counting may be described as follows : 
A succession of states which are interesting, strikingly simi- 
lar in content and intensity, but separated from each other 
by somewhat abrupt changes in the tone of feeling and in the 
character of the transition between them. If the succession 
of such states is somewhat rhythmical, the arousement of 



NUMBER AND UNITY 321 

the mind to count is the more effective. Such are, for ex- 
ample, the repeated sensations of sound caused by a clock 
striking, the swaying of the infant's body to and fro in the 
nurse's arms, the movement before the eyes of the pendu- 
lum's swing or of the ball suspended from a cord. Thus 
arises the dawning consciousness of " again and yet again " 
— that same feeling and idea, recurrent and separated from 
the ones that have been and are to be, by the ordering of 
time. The resultant in consciousness and memory of expe- 
riences like these is the first vague idea of a "numerical 
multiplicity " as distinguished from the manif oldness of parts 
belonging to one object in space. This does not, indeed, 
constitute the activity of counting — at least not in any in- 
telligent and scientific fashion. But it forms the impulse to 
those more intellectual and discriminating mental processes 
that are involved in genuine counting. And in the case of 
children and of savages, who can count scarcely at all, but 
who are by no means insusceptible to minute differences in 
such numerical multiplicity, it largely takes the place of 
counting. 

The many possible variations in that terminal state of con- 
sciousness which is produced by the repetition in conscious- 
ness of the similar, when broken up into the separate, depend 
largely upon the number of the repeated similar states. 
This terminal state may be spoken of as the inchoate con- 
sciousness of numerical multiplicity. There is a difference, 
for example, between the conscious statewhich follows as 
second or third, in a succession of similar states, from that 
which follows as sixth or seventh ; and so on. Of this differ- 
ence attentive discrimination makes us immediately aware. 
For example, the clock has given four of the ten strokes 
which announce an hour of interest to me; I am awaking to 
the fact that the clock is striking, but I have not as yet 
counted its strokes. But now the fifth stroke arouses in me 
a vague consciousness corresponding to that number in the 

21 



322 A THEORY OF REALITY 

series ; the " reverberations " of this acoustic sensation are as 
of the fifth, and of no other stroke in the series. I therefore 
count it " five ; " and, proceeding now to that more definite 
repetition of the attentive, ordering, and apperceptive con- 
sciousness in which genuine counting consists, I find, on 
reaching the end of the series, that the entire process of 
numbering has been correct. But the first part of the process 
is relatively animal and infantile ; the second part is rational 
and distinctly cognitive. Much of our adult experience 
illustrates the difference between this vague perception of 
degrees of " discrete manifoldness, " or " numerical multipli- 
city," and the rational and completely apperceptive process 
of counting. 

It is probable that all genuine counting requires the devel- 
opment of apperceptive and objective consciousness ; for as, 
in the case of measurement, we measure things by means of 
quantitative discriminations in our own conscious states, so 
in the case of counting, we number things by means of the 
repeated strokes, or pulsations, of our apperceptive conscious- 
ness. In either case, however, it is not the quantities or the 
ordering of our own states which interests us ; it is rather 
the sizes, distances, and number of things. The child 
counts objects, and not the successive conditions or im- 
pressions of its mind. To be sure, these conditions and im- 
pressions, too, may be made the object of the faculty of 
numbering; and this is what all self-consciousness is com- 
pelled to accomplish. To be self-conscious is to be aware of 
some particular state as one, of the successive state as an- 
other, and as different in time; it is also to assign both 
states to the one subject of all the states. But in the actual 
order of the mental development, the culture of the power to 
count is, at first, chiefly, if not wholly gained in the mas- 
tery of the presentations of sense. This mastery involves 
the cognition of these presentations as separable in space 
and time and — whether similar or dissimilar in content and 



NUMBER AND UNITY 323 

in spatial relations — as capable of being given a fixed place 
in a series. In this series it is not the characteristic con- 
tent of the different members which is emphasized by the 
mind's activity in counting: it is the character of the arrange- 
ment of the members in the series. 

In securing and developing the conceptions of number, all 
the faculties of the mind are operative. But especially is 
numbering an intellectual affair. It involves self-conscious 
and voluntary attention, directing upon the objects in some 
determinate time-order its repeated strokes, and meanwhile 
being aware that these strokes are being repeated in this 
orderly manner. It involves analysis and synthesis — both 
of them, as applied to the individual members of the series, 
so as to give to these members individuality and yet consti- 
tute them into the unity of the series. It requires a final act 
of synthesis which completes the conception of that particular 
number, — of four, or five, or ten, as a unity consisting of 
just so many members. For, as Dr. Ward has pertinently 
said •} " Every act of intuition or of thought is an act of uni- 
fying;" and if the concept of unity were an impression of 
sense and passively received, it would, in common with other 
such impressions, be unamenable to change. We must there- 
fore look to the movement of attention for the origin of this 
category. 

It would be a grave mistake, however, to suppose that the 
mind first forms a clear conception of unity, and then by a 
process of addition as it were, forms the conceptions of the 
particular numbers composed of manifold (so many, and no 
more) units. Here, as in all allied development of the mind 
in objective knowledge, progress is from the obscure to the 
clear in general, rather than from the clear in one particular 
to the clear in all other allied particulars. Without the 
conception of more than one, no conception of unity itself can 

1 Art. in Encyc. Brit. p. 79 ; and compare Lipps : " Grundtatsachen des See- 
lenlebens," p. 590 f. 



324 A THEORY OF REALITY 

be gained. The only cow on the island of Helgoland did not 
become one cow for the children on the island until they had 
visited Festland and seen another of the same kind. Thus 
all development of numerical conceptions requires that 
process of reciprocal clarifying which involves the repetition 
of analysis and synthesis, of separating and uniting. The 
manifold is known only in a vague way to be different from 
the single, until this manifold is understood as dependent for 
its nature upon the coexistence, in intuition or in thought, of 
a series of units. On the other hand, the unity of any single 
object can be comprehended only as this unity is contrasted 
with a manifoldness of similar objects that must emphasize 
its difference from them. " One " and " two," or any number 
more than one, "part" and "whole," "this here" and "that 
other over there" — these and all similar conceptions require 
the clarifying activity of counting the objects as they arise 
in the stream of consciousness. 

Objectively regarded, then, every objective experience is 
necessarily both one and many, according to the point of 
view selected for the fixation, distribution, and redistribution 
of apperceptive attention. And this is because every object 
is, from the psychological point of view, the construct of an 
actual analytic and synthetic activity of the intellect. 

It thus appears that all conceptions of numbers require 
that the manifold should be consciously and actively "dis- 
creted " by the mind — if one may so speak. But in the con- 
struction of those conceptions which answer to the different 
numbers, the terminal synthetic act of consciousness is made 
emphatic. I count one, and then another, and then still 
another ; I regard the whole thus attained as a discrete unity 
and call it "three." I note also the place which each mem- 
ber — no matter what sort of an object, otherwise regarded, 
it may be — holds in this succession. Thus the conceptions 
of first, second, and third are gained. Each of these con- 
ceptions both separates and unites its objects ; for all genuine 



NUMBER AND UNITY 325 

counting is a recognition of the discreteness of objects, fol- 
lowed by a recognition of their being now united as members, 
each in its place, of one and the same series. Thus number 
becomes regularly arranged manifoldness, — with the selection 
of the particular objects which shall constitute this arrange- 
ment left to the will, in its effort to reach practical or theo- 
retical ends, but with the law (regula) of arranging deter- 
mined by the constitution of the intellect. That "two" 
must follow "one," and must be itself followed by "three," 
means simply : I count ; that is, I mind the number of things. 
But what object, or part of an object, shall be put into the 
place of one, or two, or three, may be as I will. And it is 
the extent to which the activity of counting can be carried by 
any individual or any portion of the race, and the choice of 
points of view in the varied forms of counting, which deter- 
mine the degree in development of men's conceptions of 
number as applied to things. 

What it is in the construction of objects which makes it 
possible to count them at all is not now a difficult problem to 
solve. An appeal is needed to three principles in the solu- 
tion of every such problem, — two of them more especially 
formal, and the third more especially dynamic, in character. 
These are continuity in space, continuity in time, and that 
combination of distinguishability and comparability which 
secures an actual correspondence to some idea. 

First, then, a certain continuity in space must be intuited, 
or imagined, for every object-thing to which terms of num- 
ber can be applied ; and this secures to it in particular the 
unity which is equally secured by the continuity of space that 
belongs to every other object that is numbered together with 
it. The being of the one thing is somehow known as con- 
tinuous in space ; it is this spatial continuity which makes it 
into a unity. But this thing can be "one among many," 
only on the supposition that some other thing also possesses 
its own peculiar spatial continuity. Moreover, between 



326 A THEORY OF REALITY 

these two things and all other members of the same series 
of objects, the binding influence, as it were, of existence in 
the unity of space must be felt. For example, there are ten 
trees in yonder row, or distributed over that adjacent plot of 
greensward. No matter, so far as their number is concerned, 
whether the trees are elms or maples, oaks or yews : ten trees 
are they. This tree is here, a single object with its un- 
broken extension, and thus constituted for sense-perception 
and for imagination, one tree; another is there, with its own 
proper extension, and thus it also makes one tree; but, in 
number, it is two. Thus straight onward we count the row; 
or we wander in our counting over the plot where the group 
is distributed. Spatial continuity, thus broken into a "dis- 
crete manifoldness " by the construction and arrangement of 
the objects, makes it possible to count them. But if one 
choose, one may mentally seize upon any one of these ob- 
jects and convert it, by regard to the same principle, into 
the unity of a discrete manifold. This tree is one tree, 
indeed; but it has two main branches, and each of these is 
divided into four or more branches of a secondary order. 
Every individual member of this new system also is made 
one by its own continuity in space; and all the individuals 
together are numbered, as in the system, by extending the 
principle so as to divide and yet unite them all. No matter 
how large the object may be to which one chooses to attri- 
bute the unity of membership in the numerical series; and 
no matter how small, even beyond the limits of the highest 
powers of the microscope ; both sensuous intuition and sen- 
suous imagination bow to the laws of objective counting 
under the principle of the continuity of space. 

Continuity in time is another principle to which the con- 
stitution of objects must conform in order to be counted and 
numbered. The \evy act of counting has been seen to con- 
sist in a series of " strokes " of attention that are recognized 
as separate and successive in time; and the results of which 



NUMBER AND UNITY 327 

are summarized by a terminal conception that co-ordinates 
and synthesizes them all. The very idea of a " series " is 
dependent upon our experience with what is successive and 
separable in time ; but also upon the unification of the mem- 
bers of the series under some conception of their number 
regarded as coexistent in time. For although I must take 
time to count, I do not number what I have counted unless I 
regard the different things counted as a unity of beings that 
belong to the same time. One, two, three, and so on up to 
ten ; but " ten " cannot be conceived of otherwise than as de- 
pendent upon the continued existence of the preceding units, 
with which it is now joined into a new unity. This experi- 
ence is made objective on the basis of the conditions furnished 
by the presentations of sense. If, for example, I count the 
strokes of the clock as it announces the hour of ten, nothing 
remains in existence that can be regarded as corresponding 
to the terminal conception of the number ten, — except the 
conception itself. There have occurred in reality so many 
events; but there does not now exist in reality any corre- 
sponding number of objects. If, however, I count the ten 
"real" trees and finish this succession of impressions in 
time by the judgment, "There are ten;" then this judgment 
of numbers may be verified by any one who can count, as 
often as one will. One may begin at either end, or in the 
middle of the row ; one may divide the entire series with 
pauses in the counting, into as many sub-groups as one will; 
but there are always ten. In order that they may be counted 
as ten — objectively and actually — these presentations of 
sense must be known as coexistent in one time. Endurance 
of objects in time, and the objective unity of time, is thus 
a necessary assumption of the application of conceptions of 
number to our presentations of sense, or to the constructs of 
intellect and imagination in terms of presentation of sense. 
The principle of continuity in time must be observed in order 
that objects maybe counted and numbered as real existences. 



328 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Distinguishability from other objects, and yet compara- 
bility with other objects, is necessary in order that any con- 
crete reality may be intuited or imagined under the category 
of number. In order to appear as " one, " every object of 
sense-perception or of imagination must separate itself off 
from other objects and yet in such a way as to be comparable 
with them. To be counted as existent in the world of real- 
ity, each thing must be actually one, indeed; and yet it 
must also be one among many. This implies, on the one 
hand, that Reality itself is a System of inner Relations which 
have been somehow set free from internal contradictions; 
and, on the other hand, it implies in each concrete example 
a certain steadfastness in obedience to the laws which con- 
trol its own peculiar relations with other more or less similar 
objects. The object must separate itself from the environ- 
ment of objects, in order to be considered as a Thing, a 
single being; it must also behave in accordance with its own 
principles of being and not fuse with or lose itself in any 
other being, if it is to continue its claim to be counted at all. 
Thus men ask in the expressive language of slang, whether 
this particular thing " counts " for aught or not. The claim 
to be counted as belonging to the world of actual beings is 
established only by a certain steadfast action in accordance 
with certain immanent ideas; it is this which Mr. Bradley 
has rightly assigned, in its supreme form, only to the Abso- 
lute, — namely, that " self-consistency " which is the essence 
of true being. For only so long, and so far, as any object 
remains self -consistent, can it be counted as one — as itself 
(the " It " which corresponds to that particular " Self ") and 
no other. This every meanest real thing does in its own 
more or less perfect measure. But should any object aim to 
push its self-consistency so far as wholly to isolate itself, 
should it try to become an exclusive and selfish unity, it 
would thereby lose all its being. For, in order to be counted 
and numbered, every single being must stand up with the 



NUMBER AND UNITY 329' 

rest of the beings of the world — one among many. In re- 
spect to its number-characteristic, as in respect to all other 
characteristics, the " individual lives and moves and has its 
oeing " in the Unity of the one infinitely manifold System. 

The metaphysical truth with which we have just been 
dealing has undoubtedly been somewhat figuratively ex- 
pressed. But the truth told by these figures of speech is truth 
both of fact as illustrated in ordinary cognitive experience, 
and also of principle as enforced by the axioms and generali- 
zations of science. He speaks falsehood who affirms that 
there are ten trees in that row, or fifty species in that genus, 
or so many thousands of scales on that fish, or scores of 
petals or sepals in that flower, and does not observe those 
principles of all that is really numerable. Each object 
of man's cognition must assert its claim to be counted as 
"one," by its actual conformity in a self-consistent way to 
certain ideas; but each object is counted as one among 
many, to which it stands related by conformity, in all its 
behavior, to certain laws which govern the entire class. To- 
be sure, one may count things together in a quite arbitrary 
and even freaky way, if one chooses so to do. But such 
counting does not result in the healthy growth of man's 
knowledge of the nature of the world in which he lives. 
The tree is one ; the bird in its branches is two ; the squirrel 
in the hole in the branch is three; and the fungus on its 
trunk is four, — objects all. That you and I see these four 
things may be of some temporary practical interest to us; 
but it is not by such loose enumeration of objects that science 
is built up. Even in this case, our counting observes each 
of the foregoing three principles of all application of number 
to reality; since it recognizes the four objects of sense- 
perception as distinguishable and yet belonging to the com- 
mon class of the visible, under the formal conditions of space 
and time. 

If now the inquiry be raised, as to what it is that causes 



330 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the different objects, which get counted and numbered, to 
differentiate and yet unify themselves in the way in which 
they actually do, the only satisfactory reply must take into 
account the whole system of forces, forms, and laws, under 
which the world of things is known. This world, from the 
point of view held by the mind that numbers its objects is 
itself some sort of a unity of the manifold. Space and time 
are the formal conditions of this characteristic of number 
which all the objects of human knowledge possess. But it is 
the manifold forms taken by the world's constructive forces 
that must be considered as actually differentiating Reality 
into the multitude of concrete unities which exist under these 
formal conditions. In a word, the One Force of the World, 
under those formal conditions of time and space which It 
sets to our mental representation of things, by its infinite 
differentiations also gives existence to many objects, that are, 
for the time being actual unities, and yet have all their being 
in manifold relations of dependence to one another. Thus 
the category of Number depends for its application to the 
objects of man's knowledge upon the categories of Space, 
Time, and Force, and upon those conceptions and assump- 
tions as to the Nature of Reality which have already been 
found to be warranted by all these categories. 

By intellectual processes similar to those which construct 
the abstract science of space, an abstract science of number 
is founded and developed. The actual synthesis of which 
the senses and the sensuous imagination are capable extends 
to only a small number of objects. The need which arith- 
metic and its allied branches of mathematics feel, of assist- 
ance from a system of accepted symbols is, therefore, no less 
great than the similar need felt by geometry. To discuss 
the systems actually in use by modern science — their psy- 
chological genesis, historical development, and metaphysical 
import — would take our thought much too far afield. It is 
enough for present purposes to call attention briefly to the 



XUMBER AXD UNITY Sol 

following truths : First, the essence of all arithmetical proc- 
esses is the activity of counting; and all the most funda- 
mental rules of arithmetic simply declare the results of the 
different ways of working this one process of counting. 
Addition is counting on, and subtraction is counting off. 
Multiplication is counting on — so many groups which have, 
each one, so many individuals; and division is counting off, 
— so many groups, each one of a specified number. As the 
relations between the symbols which stand for the different 
numerical magnitudes are complicated, the argument follows 
the same "general axioms " of all reasoning which geometry 
employs. Second : even the most primitive and fundamental 
judgments in mathematics are not, as Kant affirmed, syn- 
thetic and a priori (in the Kantian meaning of these words). 
On the contrary, these judgments are analytically descrip- 
tive of the results reached in the various modes of the general 
process of counting. For example, the proposition 5 + 7 = 
12, means simply to mark with appropriate and fixed sym- 
bols the result of counting five, and then continuing to count 
until seven more have been counted. But the symbols, 5 + 7, 
may also be taken as a problem; and then they furnish a 
challenge to perform a certain process of counting, which has 
a subordinate terminal synthesis introduced at a certain place 
in the entire course of the process. The conception of twelve, 
as the predicate of the resulting judgment of equality, adds 
nothing to the complex conception of the subject (5 + 7); it 
simply states the term which has been fixed by agreement for 
that particular member in the series of objects counted. And 
whether we pause after the fifth, or after the seventh, or 
after any other member of the series, in any special way, 
makes no difference with our conception of the number 
"twelve." The value of this number is determined by the 
times the unit has been repeated before arriving at its place, 
as indicated by the symbol, in the numerical series. 

It has already been shown how subjective and relative to 



332 A THEORY OF REALITY 

his varying physical and mental interests is the actual system 
of numbering which man applies to the objects of his con- 
crete experiences. What primarily determines all numbering 
is the succession of " strokes of attention " as, in connection 
with the analytic and synthetic activity of intellect, they are 
applied to the different "moments" in the life of the Self. 
But objective numbering is determined by something other 
than man's own choice, not to say his own caprice. The 
numerations and calculations of science are not merely sub- 
jective and relative to the desires, wants, and practical ends, 
of human life. Things, as they appear to man under the 
conditions of his sense-perception, imagination, and thought, 
have also something to say as to how he must number them. 
The forces that operate in and between things, and between 
things and us, determine their number-characteristics for us. 
This system of objective numbering takes place under the 
formal conditions of Space and Time, and in accordance with 
those regulated changes of things which the Force of the 
world secures, as It manifests itself in the infinite variety of 
objects that constitute the One World. 

Taken in connection, then, with the other categories which 
have already been critically examined, this category of num- 
ber enforces the same truth as to the Nature of Reality which, 
we have learned from them. In those transitory and chang- 
ing relations which furnish the conditions for the application 
of the conceptions of unity and of manifoldness (of "numer- 
ical multiplicity") to man's mental representation of the 
world as in space and time, there are sure tokens to be dis- 
covered as to the unchanging and absolute character of the 
trans-sub jectively Real. The ontological doctrine thus de- 
rived includes the following particulars : first, the reality of 
certain ideal relations which always control the actual 
changes of things ; second, the actual manifoldness of that 
Being of the World in which the relations coexist; third, 
the reality of some unifying bond or principle, which actu- 



NUMBER AND UNITY 333 

allv unites the elements into separate unities, and which also 
binds them all together into higher and higher unities, and 
at last into a supreme Unity. In one word, the metaphysi- 
cal doctrine of number compels us to credit as ontologically 
true — the Reality of the manifold in Unify, of the One as 
comprehending and conditioning the many. 

Thus does the inquiry after the highest valid conception 
of "unity " become an all-important problem lor any metaphy- 
sical system. In discussing this problem it is almost as 
difficult as it is unprofitable to shirk, or to discredit, the 
import of the facts of man's common experience. Approach- 
ing the problem on the side of knowledge, we know that all 
our conceptions of any manner of unity are derived from the 
self-conscious unifying activity of the mind. In every intui- 
tion of a single object, or of several objects, whether com- 
bined to constitute a single group or known as contrasted 
groups, it is the grasping together by active consciousness 
which gives the number-qualification to the intuition. And 
the limit of the cognition attained, both as respects its clear- 
ness and as respects its manifoldness, depends upon this uni- 
fying and yet differentiating "grasp of consciousness."' So 3 
too, are all imagination of. and all reasoning about, numbers 
dependent upon the same unifying actus of the mind. 

But in any completed act of knowledge the object, thus 
produced by the mind's self -activity, is also presented to the 
mind as being really a unity. TVhat is it really to be one: 
what is it to be an actual unity ? This is an ontological 
inquiry, a question which has its place in a system of meta- 
physics. Whenever we speak of the "unity-"' of Force, or 
the " unity " of the World, or the " unity " of the origin or the 
continued connection of all beings in One Absolute or World- 
Ground, we surely need to determine carefully the meaning 
of our numerical conception. But for such phrases no mean- 
ing can be found which is not framed after a more or less 
perfect analogy of the self-known unity of the Self. It is the 



334 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Self which is the source of the logical formulas and the 
typical example of every kind and degree of unity. 1 The 
same Ego, which actively constitutes all the known unities, 
knows itself as the highest type of what it is to be one, in 
truth and in reality. 

Things possess unity only in a way inferior to that unity 
which the self possesses in the highest degree. Let there 
be no mistake here : it is not the imagined rigidity of the 
steel bar which constitutes the highest kind of an actual 
unity. This particular piece of metal, which has just been 
cut off at the rolling-mill, is indeed " one " in a very solid 
and permanent way. It will require no small expenditure 
of force to divide it into two or more parts ; it will take no 
little time to dissolve its unity into a multiplicity by the 
slow consumption of the natural forces of heat and cold and 
moisture, etc. Although it is a unity of a certain sort, it is, 
nevertheless, undergoing constant change; it is, indeed, a 
different thing every moment of its seemingly unchanging 
existence. The mind regards it as the same, one Thing 
through all its minute and invisible changes, — the same S, 

— because the changes run through the series, S, tS a , Sp, S y , 

— S v , and so obey the laws, or immanent ideas, that control 
the being of this S. Even thus, however, we cannot frame 
any conception of what it is for S — the single bar of steel 

— to be an actual unity without appealing to the analogy 
of our experience with ourselves. 

Any such thing as a bar of steel is really a vast collection 
of elements that are united, under the conditions of space 
and time, in accordance with certain relatively simple ideal 
forms. But in the case of those unities that develop from 
relatively simple and homogeneous beginnings into exceed- 
ingly complex and variable products, the conceptions of 
number, as they apply directly to the life of the self, become 
more apprehensible and exact. What is it, for example, 

1 Compare the author's "Philosophy of Mind," chap, vi., "The Unity of Mind." 



NUMBER AXD UNITY 335 

that gives unity to those forms of life which undergo such 
astonishing transformations of material, shape, and func- 
tions, as certain plants and animals exhibit? It is, obvi- 
ously, the subjugation of the manifold in space and time to the 
unity of ideas. It is only, however, when the ideas become 
such conscious states in the being which undergoes the 
changes as to form incitements and guides to its will, that 
we reach the highest kind of unity, and the richest variety of 
content as well. So that the more like the self any other 
being is known to be, the higher is the unity which that being 
possesses, because constructed more closely after the pattern 
of the self. And among selves, that One is the highest 
actual unity that is the'most of a genuine Self. 

In discussing the categories of change, being, time, space, 
and force, frequent reference was made to the conception of 
unity. In order that change may be more than change, 
some unifying principle must be discovered or assumed. In 
order really to be, the being that claims existence for human 
cognition or human thought must behave itself in accordance 
with some ideal, harmonizing principle, comprehensible by 
the human mind. Time, space, and force — all these cate- 
gories — have number applied to them ; and the whole mani- 
fold complex of changing and moving things is bound into a 
system by the unifying of time, and space, and force. But 
mere force will produce no actual unity ; and when physics or 
metaphysics speaks of the unity of force, as though it were 
an explanatory principle, unless some secret reference is made 
to the self -consistent and rational activity of a Will, the con- 
ception is not advanced a whit beyond the bare statement of 
the fact of universal interaction. Nay: action and interac- 
tion do not mean anything real and vital to man's cognitive 
experience, unless they are referred for their interpretation 
to the way in which the Self maintains itself as a unity, in 
spite of, and by virtue of, its manifold forms of the com- 
merce with things. Without admitting thus much, all meta- 



336 A THEORY OF REALITY 

physical discussions of man's conceptions of number seem 
doomed to end with the closing sentences of Plato's 
" Parmenides " : — 

"Then let us say this; and further, as seems to be the 
truth, let us say that, one is or is not, one and the others 
in relation to themselves and one another — all of them, in 
every way — both are and are not, and appear and appear 
not. 

"That is most true." 

If, then, the World constitutes a real unity of a kind at 
once most comprehensible and most effective to account for 
all man's experience with himself and with other things, 
this unity is that of an Absolute Self. Its manifold separate 
realities have their being as manifestations, or "moments," 
in Its Unity. That this is so, is further indicated and en- 
forced by conceptions which have not yet received critical 
examination. But the more complete and satisfying concep- 
tion of the nature of that oneness which man's progress in 
knowledge justifies him in applying to the system of known 
realities requires considerations to be drawn from the phil- 
osophy of the ideal, — from ethics, aesthetics, and religion. 
For it is only the self-conscious and self-consistent realiza- 
tion of the highest ideals which can reveal to the mind of 
man the nature of the highest kind of that Reality which is 
entitled to be called " One. " 



CHAPTER XIII 

FORMS AND LAWS 

Conceptions corresponding to the words which stand at the 
head of this chapter compel the extension of our reflections 
in the effort to discover that Theory of Reality which shall 
most satisfactorily explain all the facts of man's cognitive 
experience. " Phenomena " so-called are never appearances 
of mere, undefined beings, or of unrelated beings, or of beings 
that follow no particular order in their construction and their 
behavior. On the contrary, the objects of man's knowledge 
are always particular beings, constituted in definite form and 
behaving in more or less uniform manner, whose so-called 
" natures " may be represented conceptually, and whose be- 
havior he may properly attempt to formulate and to explain as 
an obedience to the laws of Nature in general. Even the 
most sudden and surprising changes in the construction or 
the relations of things do not take them out of the sphere to 
which the mind deems its conceptions of form and of law to 
be applicable. For actual changes never move from the 
wholly formless or chaotic to the fully formed, but only from 
one form to another more or less distantly allied form ; nor 
does any thing ever change from the wholly unrelated to the 
precisely related, — a jump from the unconditioned to the 
definitely conditioned, — but only from one set of relations 
into another. 

On the one hand, without change the very conception of 
form and law have no significance in reality. On the other 
hand, change that has absolutely no regard to form and law 

22 



338 A THEORY OF REALITY 

can never get any place in reality. All the particular beings 
— the selves and the things — which are known or can be 
imagined, are really what they are, because their different 
constituent elements arrange themselves in an ideal way, and 
function together or in sequence, under conditions of recipro- 
cal dependence. This way of their behavior always makes a 
demand upon us for " reasons " which shall show why the 
behavior is thus rather than otherwise ; and why the series of 
changes in form, or in relation, follows this particular rather 
than some other regular course. 

It is true that the metaphysical way of interpreting the 
conceptions of form and law as applied to selves and to things 
does not seem, at first sight, to answer perfectly to the common- 
sense view. It is enough for the understanding and practical 
purposes of the " plain man " that he shall consider the form 
of things as something that is fixed, and belongs to them as a 
sort of gift or compulsion from without. So does he, with his 
carpenter's tools, shape the table or the box ; the thing thus 
shaped, unless some subsequent accident or other formative 
agency comes upon it, abides in the same shape in which it 
was put. So, too, does he afterward set the table or the box 
in such relations as he will to other things ; and when he has 
willed these precise relations, the thing stays where it was 
set. Little reflection is needed to show that science in its 
complicated dealings with such transactions — simple as they 
appear to the " common-sense " consciousness — has a differ- 
ent tale to tell. The form imparted to the table, or to the box, 
was not originally given to it without respect to the form 
that the material out of which these new things were con- 
structed, already possessed. The new form was itself due to 
the characteristic modes of reaction that were given by the 
material to the formative forces which acted upon it. These 
modes of reaction themselves were due to the form already 
belonging to the material, — this old form being the expres- 
sion of certain forces of cohesion and atomic affinity which 



FORMS AND LAWS 339 

had previously been called out by the action upon the ele- 
ments of the formative chemico-physical forces under which 
the wood grew. Nor was the form-giving energy exerted by 
the carpenter of an essentially different order. It was his 
saw, plane, and hammer, which shaped the wood into these 
new relations. But the constantly changing relations of 
these tools to the wood, as they were shaping it, were them- 
selves produced by changes in the form of the muscles of the 
carpenter ; these latter changes were shaped by those myste- 
rious processes which go on in the efferent nerve-tracts ; and 
these were due to influences that may be traced back to the 
motor centres of the brain. Nor is there the slightest valid 
reason in experience to stop here ; for it was the formative 
influence of the stream of consciousness — ideating and will- 
ing — on which these motor centres reacted according to their 
own nature and in obedience to the laws relating them with 
the mind, which initiated the entire series of connected 
changes. For this is what form, as belonging to all particu- 
lar beings, actually is ; namely, the ideal manner in which the 
forces immanent in things react upon the changes in their rela- 
tions to one another. In reality, every particular being is cease- 
lessly forming itself and being formed. No actual form is 
ever statical and fixed. The actual form of every Thing is the 
changing expression of the nature of that thing, as dependent 
upon the particular part which it is playing at that instant in 
the total Being of the World. 

Similar conclusions follow a critical examination into the 
meaning, for reality, of that aspect of our common experience 
which leads to the conception of physical and mental " laws," 
and to the scientific assumption of a " reign of law " which is 
universal in the realms both of mind and of matter. In the 
popular thought the law, like the form, which applies to any 
particular case is customarily regarded as though it were 
pre-existent to the beings to which it is applied, — dominating 
or ruling over them ; to " It " they are subject as to a sovereign 



340 A THEORY OF REALITY 

whose allegiance has been involuntarily and unthinkingly 
assumed. Modern science, especially, seems by its phrase- 
ology to insist upon making an entity, or explanatory realistic 
principle, out of its conception of " Law," which it regards as 
somehow separable from the facts, and as belonging to a higher 
and more invulnerable order of existences. Not infrequently, 
the total collection of so-called laws, suspected or definitively 
ascertained, is thus converted, in thought, into a perfectly 
rigid and unchanging system of rules, that binds fast, while 
it wholly explains, the character and the sequences of the 
phenomena. 

In reality, all physical laws are only convenient and often 
temporary formulas for stating the ways in which things seem 
actually to behave under a variety of changing relations to 
one another. Man's knowledge of the world in the midst 
of which he lives does not begin with, or depend upon, the 
conviction that the actual facts of his experience are forever 
and irresistibly bound together under unchanging and uni- 
versally applicable formulas. The order of mental develop- 
ment proceeds, indeed, from observation of the concrete facts 
to the conception of a regular connection amongst the facts. 
But even the modified way in which Lotze states the a priori 
doctrine of this conception of a connection, " in law," for 
the entire course of tilings, as antedating experience (steht 
vor oiler Erfahrung fest), 1 is not warranted by the actual 
facts of man's mental development. Chemical laws, for 
example, can not be spoken of as actually in existence, 
while as yet all of the necessary elements have not come into 
the precise relations necessary to their particular forms of 
chemical union. The laws of physiological chemistry cannot 
antedate the facts of life. And as to the universal " reign of 
law," this is a most complicated and intensely modern concep- 
tion. In its ordinary acceptation, it is an exceedingly figura- 
tive and still doubtful affair. Whatever form of interpretation 

1 See his "Metaphysik," Einleitung, p. 8 f. 



FORMS AND LAWS . 341 

is given to this seductive phrase, the conception answering to it 
remains something far short of a demonstration or even of a 
legitimate a priori assumption. 

While, however, much uncertainty of application belongs 
to the conceptions of " form " and " law," as these conceptions 
are held and employed by modern science, both of them are 
fitly employed in witness of certain forms of cognition which 
are entitled to be considered forms of reality as well. That 
is to say, the words express certain categories. No wholly 
formless Thing can really be ; and if such a no-thing ( Unding) 
could exist, it could not be known to exist. No wholly form- 
less, or unshaped, series of changes can take place in the 
being of any thing : a real being cannot thus violate the law 
of its nature, even when feeling the utmost compulsion from 
outside influences, to change its " manner of life." No 
wholly formless transaction can occur in which several things 
take different parts ; in every transaction that involves a 
number of different beings, each individual being must take 
its own proper part in the form that fitly belongs to it, 
whether it be some form of action or of suffering. But in all 
such use of the words " form " and " law," and in all use of 
similar or cognate terms, one and the same truth is meant. It is 
meant to apply ideas to things, and to the behavior of things. 
Shaping and being shaped, formative action and forming re- 
action in response to such action, are both alike significant 
of the direction of immanent forces in conformity to immanent 
ideas. All so-called " obedience to law " is voluntary or 
enforced submission to ideas. No other meaning, and no 
meaning whatever which excludes this meaning, can be given 
to any of these terms ; expressed in one word, the truth is 
this : Everything that is, and every event that happens, comes 
under the category of the Idea. 

In illustration of the essential thought on which all such 
terms concentrate attention, the way that men employ the 
two words, " form " and " law," deserves further recognition. 



342 A THEORY OF REALITY 

In the case of that relatively unchanging material which is 
seemingly shaped wholly from without, the conception of form 
overlays and obscures the conception of law ; and the truth 
that both form and law are essentially ideal comes to be re- 
garded as an insignificant common-place. No one thinks of 
denying that the idea of the carpenter determines the form 
which the table or box shall have. But, to search the deeper 
truth, it is the obscure and complicated action and reaction of 
innumerable factors, mental and physical, under a great num- 
ber of laws, that determine the form of the finished product. 
Brain cells, nerve-tracts, muscle-fibre, tools of wood and iron, 
material of wood and iron — all have been both forming and 
being formed, according to the several laws of their reciprocal 
relations. Not one of the millions of factors which took part 
in this transaction will ever return to its original form ; and 
no other table, or box, which called out the same concentra- 
tion of laws has ever been formed, or ever will be formed 
again. The combined psychical and physical forces involved 
have changed the form of all the beings engaged in the trans- 
action ; the entire World of Being will never be the same 
again. The event seems trivial enough ; but in it the whole 
system of reality has actualized once for all a particular 
series of its ideas ; and it never needs to do things twice 
alike. Form and law have directed force, and things have 
changed in conformity to new ideal conditions. The interior, 
mysterious nature of all this, the silent but marvellous obe- 
dience of the concurring factors to the suggestions and 
directions of the idea, are not to be overlooked or mistaken 
because the transaction appears to the popular mind so coarse 
and common-place. For this is just what the conceptions of 
"form" and of "law" always mean; the changes which the 
forces immanent in the beings of the world effect, ivhether they 
are changes of the condition of the beings themselves or changes 
of their mutual relations, always must be known as conforming 
to ideas. 



FORMS AXD LAWS 343 

From the point of view held by the student of the psycho- 
logical genesis and development of these conceptions, the 
subjective and relative character of all man's knowledge of 
forms and of laws is most obvious. Every real Thing, no 
matter how fixed, essential, and independent of all mental 
activity it may appear to be, has in truth an indefinite number 
of forms and obeys an indefinite number of laws, — according 
to the mind's voluntary or involuntary changes in its points of 
view. " Pure " form or " pure " law is a pure abstraction ; 
actual form and really established law require the construc- 
tive and relating activity of mind. The psychology of these 
conceptions shows that they are imparted to things by the 
mind of man. Forms are given to things by the formative 
activity of the observing and reflecting mind ; laws are im- 
parted to events by the relating and reflecting mind. Forms 
and laws are mental representations, figurate conceptions, 
ways in which the senses apprehend and interpret the modi- 
fications of the stream of consciousness. Xo other kind of 
form seems so well entitled to be the possession of the thing 
in itself, fixed and independent of all relation to the knower, 
as its shape or its size, — especially in the case of the solid 
and unyielding sorts of material. How, for example, are 
the length and the weight of a steel rail, or the relation which 
two lines of steel rails sustain to each other over the miles of 
road-bed from A to B, dependent upon any man's perception, 
imagination, thought ? But the discussion of the categories 
of quality, relation, and space has already answered this and 
all similar inquiries. Length and weight have no meaning, 
independent of the measuring activities of mind, and of the 
sensations and feelings of effort called forth by the changing 
relations of the mind to the things that possess the qualities. 

Moreover, if one attempt to learn the entire doctrine of 
form as it applies to any single thing, or to compass the list 
of so-called laws which any particular being is obeying at any 
instant of its existence, one will need to exhaust all human 



344 A THEORY OF REALITY 

knowledge ; and still one will be far enough from reaching a 
complete fulfilment of one's aim. As to space-form, every 
single thing embodies all the formal principles of the Euclid- 
ean geometry, and offers suggestions which lead the thought 
out into the wide and airy regions of the new geometry. As 
to the form of the forces that are centred in each thing, or 
are concentrated upon it, there is need to invoke for its com- 
plete understanding the entire modern theory of dynamics. 
Heat, light, electricity, magnetism — and more beyond — are 
all expressing their will in the form which every particular 
being has assumed, and in the form of the changes it con- 
stantly undergoes. 

What a mockery of an explanation it is to regard any deed 
done by any thing as an event under the reign of laws that 
are totally unrelated to the points of view chosen by the law- 
giving mind which observes and thinks upon the event ! The 
vase falls to the floor and is broken into a score of pieces. 
Its fall and breaking appears to me as one continuous, 
unanalyzable event. Instantly, and at the right moment, 
when the careless servant's hand struck it, the whole thing, 
and every part of it down to the separate atoms, knew what to 
do. Of its own will it moved to the floor, to which it was 
drawn ; it then broke itself, just precisely as it was broken, 
because the molecules and the atoms all knew what was 
required of them, each one, under such definite but com- 
plicated and unaccustomed circumstances. Neither the vase 
as a whole, nor any of its parts, had ever behaved in any 
such way before ; and certainly they will never have the 
chance to behave in similar manner again. Yet this its be- 
havior was an inconceivably complicated affair, — a unit- 
transaction involving the solution, by millions of elements, of 
an infinitely complex problem which they had never been 
called upon to solve before. You and I, two human minds, 
— perhaps objecting to the servant's explanation that the 
vase " broke itself " — begin to pick the event in pieces, to 



FORMS AND LAWS 345 

analyze it, to consider its unique particularity as a combining 
of millions of factors, from a score of different points of view. 
From the point of view of ethics, we blame the careless hand 
that initiated it : but with the wisdom of modern science, we 
declare : i( It happened according to law.*' What law, indeed ? 
It would seem that the law of gravitation was most promi- 
nently concerned in this particular transaction. But the law 
of gravitation is no somewhat that existed antecedent to this 
particular fact, and presided over it; nor had this law any- 
thing to do with more than one possible aspect of the total 
complex transaction. The so-called laws of the cohesion of 
molecules under the influence of heat, and of their separation 
under mechanical force, must also be summoned to help 
account for this event. These physical formulas afford us a 
partial satisfaction in the explanation of another aspect of the 
whole event. The laws of those untrained minds that work 
without conscious regard to law may also, well enough, be 
regarded at this point. 

Laws many and forces many — which seem to change them- 
selves in character as we change our points of view and sum- 
mon more or less of the world's scientific acquisitions to our 
aid — certainly get concrete expression in every single trans- 
action between things, no matter how apparently simple. 
Every such transaction is an epitome of the physical universe. 
Man's attempt to understand it succeeds only in the measure 
in which he is permitted to read into the event his own ideas. 
For to discover and to declare the -forms" of things, and to 
regard them as obeying ••laws,*' is undoubtedly to impose 
upon trans-subjective realities our human ideas. The Forms 
of Reality are the ideal ways in which real beings appear to us, 
as we assume toward them various relations determined by 
selected points of view. The Laws of Reality are the concep- 
tual forms of behavior which emphasize our attempts at 
explaining the transactions of real beings, as we reflect upon 
the many possible aspects which these transactions present. 



346 A THEORY OF REALITY 

If now, however, all trans-subjective application or onto- 
logical basis for man's conceptions of form and law be 
denied, the attempt to frame a rational theory of reality 
must, of course, be forever abandoned. For the conformity 
to ideas of those unseen forces which our ordinary or our 
scientific knowledge ascribes to things, is both a postulate 
and a conclusion of all objective knowledge. The illustration 
and enforcement of this truth is dependent upon consider- 
ations so similar to those which have already been repeatedly 
presented that our treatment of it may be, at this point, very 
brief. The knower necessarily conforms his object — since 
the process of knowing is his conscious activity and no mere 
receptivity or process of copying-off — to his own sensuous 
and intellectual life. The object known, however real a thing 
it may be, is never a construct, in respect of form or of relation, 
independent of the knower's Self. If, then, the word " idea " 
be used in one of its several possible significations (idea=cog- 
nition objectively regarded), then every object of cognition, as 
respects its form and as respects the laws of its relation, is an 
idea. As said Schopenhauer : " The World is my Idea." As 
Kant taught : The laws of nature are determined by the 
functioning of the intellect under its several constitutional 
forms, — the twelve so-called " categories." 

But, on the other hand, no object of any form of human 
cognitive experience is merely man's idea. Its being, as an 
object of knowledge, is also the product wrought by a will 
" of its own," an activity that is principled according to its 
own appropriate set of ideas. The moment I begin to regard 
my object as a real existence, I recognize that it actually con- 
tributes its quota to the transaction between us in which I get 
my idea of it, and learn the laws of its nature and of its 
behavior toward other things. I can, indeed, observe this 
object from different points of view, and then regard it as an 
appearance to me, in conformity with the forms and laws of 
my ideating and thinking Self. But, on the other hand, I 



FORMS AXD LAWS 347 

cannot dictate to it how it shall appear, regardless of that 
group of ideas which constitute its formal nature, and the 
so-called laws of its relations to other beings in the system of 
things. Nothing else so shocks common-sense and so destroys 
all the foundations of science, without in the least contribut- 
ing to the psychological or philosophical explanation of the 
facts of experience, as the claim that the forms and laws of 
real things are determined merely by the ideas of man. 

That the forms and laws ascribed by the intellect of man 
to things haye a trans-subjectiye basis, and are not merely 
imparted to things by the mental act of knowledge, is one of 
the ontological assumptions which metaphysics has a perfect 
ri^ht to receiye from a critical theory of knowledge. The 
proper metaphysical (as distinguished from the epistemolog- 
ical) inquiries are these : What is it really to haye form, or to 
assist in forming reality? and, What is it, in reality, to obey 
or to follow laws ? or, finally : What yiew of the Nature of 
Reality follows from the obseryed facts that the world of 
things is a system of formed beings, of formatiye forces, and 
of the connected interaction of indiyiduals under the so-called 
" reign of uniyersal law ? " 

Things actually have forms ; they really act in formatiye 
ways upon one another ; and they do actually obey laws. 
These and similar phrases express an ontological truth which 
all man's experience with things enforces, and which a criti- 
cal treatment of the categories can neither gainsay nor neglect. 
But what that goes on in reality, what that is attributable to 
the concrete real beings and their actual behayior, is meant 
by such phrases ? Truths of the process of cognition they 
plainly set forth ; but what are the truths they assume as to 
the construction and processes of reality ? 

Any direct and satisfactory answer to such inquiries as the 
foregoing comes only when reflection turns toward our self- 
conscious and indubitable experience with our Self in com- 
merce with Things. I know well what it is for me to form 



348 A THEORY OF REALITY 

something else, or to be myself formed by some other, and 
to obey or to evade the laws of my own being : It is to will 
according to my own ideas, in reciprocally determining rela- 
tions with other wills. To take any part in forming one's 
self or others, means to direct my action in pursuit of my 
own ideas, and yet in recognition of variable relations 
between myself and other beings. For without recognition 
of the ideas according to which these other beings act in 
their relations to me, I cannot avail myself of them, either 
to form myself by them or to form them to my will. Whether 
the influence of the idea, in its direction of the stream of 
consciousness, extends only to the choice of an apple out of 
a plate-full, or contemplates the forming of a finished moral 
character, the necessity is the same. All man's different 
bodily movements, and the different " moments " in his 
psychical development, must be regarded as co-operating 
forces, acting and reacting under the direction of ideas. 
This, too, is precisely what is meant when we regard our- 
selves as shaping some external and material thing so as 
to render it an example, in reality, of our own ideas. 

The actuality of this ideal interpretation of the words 
form and law, as applied to the system of things, does not 
admit of question or debate in respect to one class of ex- 
ternal or thing-like objects. This class comprises all other 
selves than our self, — for each man, his fellow-men. And 
here it must not be forgotten that for every knower there are 
only two possible kinds of objects, which can claim for their 
reality the immediacy of an incontestable knowledge ; these 
are the Self, and Things. As the knowledge of the self 
changes and develops, the more external and less central 
factors of this object — the members of the body as viewed 
from the outside and even the brain as imagined or thought — 
become, for the Self, other things than itself. Always the 
primary evidence for the existence and the activity of all 
other selves is the knowledge of things ; for each Self, every 



FORMS AKD LAWS 3-49 

other being — other men included — is known as a " Thino:." 
What is really indicated by the vague and mischievously 
figurative conception of a so-called " social self " is nothing 
but a collection of thing-like existences whose changes I 
interpret in terms of the self-conscious processes of feeling, 
ideating, and willing, which I know myself to have. All this, 
however, amounts to saying that the changes of form, passively 
endured or actively accomplished, and the changes of relation 
in obedience to law, of these things are known to me as ex- 
pressions of other will, and other ideas, than my own. 

If now the grounds be examined on which such an interpre- 
tation of the actual significance of the behavior of things 
reposes, it appears in no essential respect peculiar, much less 
unique, when it is applied to other selves. The way is open 
for the advocate of a pure subjectivism, in treating this cate- 
gory, too, to go through his customary series of tedious and 
ineffectual objections to any form of realism. You are, for 
me, merely existent in my idea — as the idea of a thing. 
You are, for me, mere fact of sensation, and fainter, recurrent 
image of sensation, and expectation of the renewal of sensa- 
tion, etc. And sitting in your academic chair, with your 
agnostic pen in hand, you may write me down as a maker of 
unverifiable assertions when I maintain that I know you as a 
trans-subjective entity, not dependent for your real being, or 
actual behavior, on my stream of consciousness. But this 
agnostic asseveration itself is so absurd and self-contradictory 
that it cannot be stated in other than suicidal terms. And 
upon the confidence of all men that it is not true — nay, that 
it has not so much as a faint shadow of truth to urge in its 
behalf — all men's knowledge of each other, of life, of society, 
of history, and even of themselves in the last analysis, is seen 
to repose. Yet the confidence itself, in the last analysis, is 
nothing other than confidence in the interpretation of the 
changes of things in terms of ideas. 

Now, so far as all that is essential to the categories of Form 



350 A THEORY OF REALITY 

and Law is concerned, other things, which are not other selves, 
do not differ from other selves. Things differ from selves in 
respect of the forms they assume and impress upon one 
another ; they differ also in respect of the particular laws 
which they obey or treat with disregard. The stone will not 
change its color-form when you insult it ; nor will it be 
recreant to the law of gravitation in answer to your beseech- 
ings. The limitations that it acknowledges in the series of 
formal changes through which it passes are different from 
those acknowledged by you and by me. But the limitations 
of form and law acknowledged by this particular stone are 
also different from those which are acknowledged by another 
species of stone ; or by the feather which the stone, when 
thrown, dislodges from the bird's wing. There are, in reality, 
many kinds of things; and each kind obeys some of the laws 
and carries out some of the ideas of all other things ; but each 
kind has ideas of its own, and makes, by its actual concrete 
behavior, combinations of laws peculiar to itself. To no kind 
of things, however, can the conceptions of active and passive 
form, or of law, be applied without express or tacit recognition 
of the influence of immanent ideas. 

Undoubtedly, as the analogies to the Self, by which we 
interpret the constitution, changes, and relations of things, 
become more vague and remote, we begin to lose confidence 
in the perfect validity of our interpretation. We begin to 
hesitate as to where we shall locate the explanatory principle. 
But this point of vacillation is not a point of higher privilege 
and of profounder knowledge. On the contrary, it is a point 
which marks the deepening shadows of human ignorance. 
Everywhere, in everything and in every transaction, appears 
the presence of ideas — so far as any feature or form of be- 
havior clearly appears. But we anon commence to ask : To 
whose being does this particular idea belong ? or, What, after 
all, is the exact idea expressed by this feature or behavior of 
this thing ? The same questions are often enough asked by 



FORMS AXD LAWS 351 

every one with reference to one's fellow-men ; they are even 
sometimes pertinently asked with regard to one's own self. 
No man can claim to know throughout all the ideas which he 
actually realizes, — much less his own entire nature and all 
the laws which it obeys. The knower, too, is constantly ex- 
pressing ideas not, from the first and wholly, his own. The 
very growth of self-knowledge is the increasingly clear, com- 
plete, and satisfying interpretation of the actual facts of 
one's own development in terms of the appropriate ideas. 

In the case of the forms and laws of the higher animal life, 
we do not hesitate to claim a valid trans-subjective use of this 
same category (the category of the " Idea "). The dog, the 
elephant, the raven, manifest (as no one can doubt) in certain 
of their changes of form and relation — in the nature and 
laws of the species and of the individual — the presence and 
influence of ideas. Some of the ideas they express are their 
own ; but relatively few and feeble are these ideas which have 
actuality in the streams of consciousness, the psychic exist- 
ence, of these animals. In a yet more wonderful way does it 
seem to us — because here the analogies are more remote — 
that the insects generate, and grow, and enter into compli- 
cated social connections, changing their forms and obeying 
the " laws of their being." The cilia in the mucous mem- 
brane of the frog's throat, and the corpuscles in his blood, and 
every amoeboid element in every living structure, behaves also 
as though it had its own outfit of controlling ideas. Nor is 
this much less true of the way the rootlets of trees seek the 
gases and the moisture they require ; or the way that flowers 
form and unfold at their appointed time. And, as a great 
astronomer has said, every planet always behaves precisely as 
though it knew just what is expected of it in view of the com- 
plicated and changing relations it sustains, at each moment, 
to all the other members of the solar system. What ** 
expected is never twice exactly alike. But the ideas that 
suggest the proper combination remain unchanged ; and the 



352 A THEORY OF REALITY 

planets behave themselves according to the particular propor- 
tions required by each special combination which actually 
takes place. 

When it is claimed that the popular or scientific recognition 
of forms and laws in any single case, and the extension of 
these conceptions over the whole realm of objective knowledge, 
imply man's confidence in the universal and valid application 
of ideas to reality, several objections are wont to be proposed. 
But, as has already been indicated, such objections do not 
affect the truth that these principles are coextensive with all 
human knowledge ; they are only confessions as to the pres- 
ent limits of some particular branch of knowledge. As far as 
man's present knowledge extends, and as far as knowledge 
can be conceived of as extending itself in the future, so far 
extends the actuality of immanent ideas. The objections do 
not hold against the category of the Idea : they only inform 
us of what we knew before ; namely, that in a vast number 
of cases we do not yet know what particular ideas are being 
realized. 

It is in vain to object that physical science does not intend 
to be thus " anthropomorphic " when it discourses of causes 
which operate among things in a formative way, or of laws 
that apply to beings which give no sufficient token of acting 
under /the influence of their own conscious ideas. Physical 
science does not, indeed, intend to recognize the reality of 
immanent ideas, by its doctrine of forms and laws ; it intends 
only to state the uniform rules afforded by its generalizations 
from facts. The rather are all its laws, when regarded from 
its own point of view, nothing other than generalized physical 
facts. They summarize the statement ; the event happened 
thus and so, in fact, once and again ; when a and b were given 
in fact, under the actual circumstances n — q, then x followed, 
in fact, according to the formula x = (a + 5) \j n — q. The 
cause of the event x is, therefore, to be found in a and b, 
which combine to produce it in measures indicated by n — q ; 



FORMS AXD LAWS 353 

and the law of such combinations is given in the formula, 



(a + 5) y/ n — q. 

But to all such representations of physical science the reply 
is pertinent that, in truth, the facts of experience are not fairly 
stated in this way ; nor does this statement cover all that 
science means by its discourse about forms and laws. Just 
as the essential factor in the conception of cause is a cognitive 
experience of forces, so is the essential factor in the concep- 
tions of form and law a cognitive experience of ideas. Crude, 
unformed, unidealized facts cannot constitute the basis of a 
scientific induction. The mind of man knows nothing 
about mere facts — about bare, untransformed occurrences in 
nature or in the self. Facts, when known, are no longer mere 
occurrences, or mere deeds ; they are known as the behavior 
of real beings that have certain ideal forms and that act in 
certain ideal ways. What, indeed, is that ''particularity" 
of the beings which takes part in the transaction, bat their 
complex form, or ideal ways of existence ? What is the par- 
ticular deed they accomplish but their ideal way of behavior ? 
What is the law that defines the uniform action of physical 
beings under definite relations, but the ideal way which they 
have of behaving toward one another ? Physical science 
itself is essentially a system of judgments which predicate 
ideas (universals) of concrete realities (individuals' . If by 
" fact " mere doing is meant, then there is no such scientific 
knowledge as " knowledge of fact ; " for, indeed, every fact is 
scientifically known only as it appears in its connections and 
relations with other facts — under conceptions of causation. 
order, and law. 

Moreover, mere statement of fact, in the way of generaliza- 
tion and without any recognition of the ideal shaping of the 
facts and of their relations, is not all that science means by its 
discourse concerning " forms " and % - laws.'" The insincerity 
or the flippancy of such a claim is apparent at once when 
these categories are examined from the point of view furnished 

23 



354 A THEORY OF REALITY 

by another objection. Granted, it is now urged, that man is 
obliged to understand all the being and changes of things as 
conformable to immanent ideas ; still, this is only his manner 
of conception, or of impressing his ideas upon things. Such 
a view of reality is anthropomorphic. The ideas are ours ; 
there is no good reason to believe that they actually belong to 
things. Now, this objection is undoubtedly impressive ; but 
it should, first of all, be noticed that it contradicts in an 
important way the objection first raised. It was then alleged 
that scientific cognition, at least, — and whatever may be. said 
for the popular mode of thinking or for a few remaining ad- 
herents to a discomfited, idealistic metaphysics — regards 
both the interior and the reciprocal transactions of things as 
" mere facts," with no ideas in them at all. Now, however, 
it is alleged that, of course, physical beings and events have 
ideas in them ; but these ideas are unwarrantably put into 
them by the minds of the observers. Of course, even a scien- 
tific man is an anthropos ; therefore, his cognitions are neces- 
sarily " anthropomorphic." 

We entered upon this attempt at a system of metaphysics, 
after having put ourselves on good terms with all the cate- 
gories. That the universal and necessary forms of knowledge 
are the forms of reality, was the epistemological postulate 
which we took into our cheerful confidence from the very first. 
What a criticism of the categories has shown is this : without 
accepting the existence in reality — the trans-subjective 
character — of forms and laws, knowledge is impossible. 
Knowledge of things involves the understanding of things as 
actually conforming to immanent ideas. In other words, 
the " immanent idea " is a category, under which all reality is 
known by us to fall. 

At this point, finally, the objection to fixing a meaning for 
the word " immanent " — in the use already made of it — be- 
comes more powerful and more difficult to answer. But this 
objection is chiefly due to the obscurity and doubt which 



FORMS AND LAWS ooo 

hang »ver the answer that must he given to the problem <:: 
■• localizing " the ideas that are known somehow to belong to 
the reality of things. To speak of iaeas as "immanent" in 
any being suggests at once a relation whim is primarily of a 
spatial order, and to which there clings almost inevitable the 
jriginal ^t;__rsti:ns derived from the perception and the 
imagination of things as "in space." Thns those conscious 
ideas which are always the partial, and are often the more 
obvious, explanation :: the changes actively produced in our 
bodies, and in other things, as well as certain manges more 
passively experienced as due to the action of things upon one 
another, are said to exist •• in " us — with at least a semi-local 
meaning to the phrase. It is inevitable that we should regard 
the ideas of other men. and of the higher animals, as seated 
(or •■ immanent" i in those thing-line objects which constitute 
for immediate sense-perception the realities themselves. But 
surely, in all such cases, it is not necessary to regard ideas as 
entities that are locally situate, under terms of our spatial 
picture of things, within the things themselves, in order to 
justify our use of this firm of conception! 

A relation of spatial extension, or :t position after the 
analogy of a mathematical point within ;. plane or solid, is 
not what is intended by the actual "immanency of the 
Idea." It is. the rather, meant that ideation — in the most 
general meaning of that word — ■ is an essential factor in all 
man's cogniti::: : and that when ideation reaches the certainty 
and rational construction which all cognition implies, it 
guarantees its own reality as belonging to the objects known. 
If, from the epistemological point of vie—. I am compelled to 
acknowledge thet I impress my ideas upon all tther things: 
still, from the ontological point of view, I am equally com- 
pelled to believe that things reveal their ideas to me. My 
entire known world does, indeed, show the constructive work 
:•! the formative principles of my intellect: but I am a part 
— an exceeding- smell t art. without doubt — of a world that 



356 A THEORY OF REALITY 

is far larger than I, and that includes me and all other 
ideas and other things. The world is known by man to be 

— in every particular, as well as when regarded in its totality 

— a system of intellectual formative principles, to which his 
own mental existence and mental activity are due. So that 
there is even more reason to affirm that the ideas immanent in 
things account for man^s ideas, than to find the entire account 
of this ideal appearance of things in maris ideating activity. 

A brief recall of certain conclusions already reached will 
assist us further in the effort to understand what is properly 
meant by recognizing the principle of " immanent ideas " as 
among the most undoubted of ontological truths. In discuss- 
ing the category of space it was shown that a critical metaphys- 
ics does not for a moment suppose that man's subjective and 
relative space-picture of the world is a copy of the trans- 
subjective and absolute Reality. But it was also shown that 
the ultimate explanation of this universal and necessary form 
of man's mental representation must be found in regarding 
Reality as possessing a principle of differentiation, upon 
whose activity all separate real existences, as well as man's 
mental representations of them, continually depend. This 
conclusion regarding the real nature of space involved the 
category of force, without which no trans-subjective ground 
for the formal category is conceivable. Space is that form of 
the differentiation of One Force which secures, in the unity 
of one system, a multiplicity of different things. But now we 
have seen that man's cognitive experience will not tolerate 
an explanation which leaves this self-differentiating and self- 
distributing Force, to whose work all the actual changes of 
condition and relation in the world's being are due, bereft of 
ideas. For the very essence of things is in their form ; — the 
" whatness " of every being is always an ideal affair. And 
the essence of the behavior of things is found in the laws 
they obey while changing their relations to one another, — 
the ideas to which they customarily consent. To join ideas 



FORMS AOT> LAWS 357 

with force in all our knowledge of things, — the ideas, as well 
as the force, not being considered to be merely a subjective 
form but also the real possession, the essential constitution of 
things, — this is to assert the " immanency " of ideas. For 
ideas are not immanent in reality, when they are im- 
agined as spatially enclosed by the reality, but when they are 
rationally, and in a certified way, included in our cognition of 
reality. The " immanent idea " joins hands with " immanent 
force" to explain to the mind the inmost nature of that real 
Being to which they both belong. 

It is instructive to notice how ready men are to recognize 
the presence in their own bodily and mental existence of 
ideas and forces not consciously their own. You can easily 
explain to the unlearned man that his heart beats, his eyes 
move, his blood flows, his brain functions, his glands secrete, 
and Iris thoughts, volitions, and emotions come and go, only 
very partially as he consciously wills and knows what actually 
takes place. This is to say, that the forces and ideas of 
nature account for much which is effected in himself. His own 
ideas assist in the explanation of what he is, and does, only in 
a limited way. Each human being, body and mind, in respect 
of his changes of internal condition or of external relation, 
is only partially his own ; he is very largely the child and 
possession of nature, — the continuous product of that larger, 
other Being, which everywhere penetrates his Self, and yet 
which must be thought of, and known, as not identical with that 
self. That is to say, his own conscious force and ideas, and 
the forces and ideas of an Other, of which he is not conscious, 
are both always immanent in the complete self-hood of 
every man. By immanency, in both cases, is meant that 
inner necessity of relation which belongs to an indispensable 
explanatory principle. 

Again, then, we repeat that the reality of the immanent 
idea as a category is indisputable. Objections to this view 
are due either to ignorance or to the misapplication of terms 



358 A THEORY OF REALITY 

by a limited and merely figurative use of them. The legit- 
imate and necessary use of this category is limited only by 
the extent of human knowledge. Without it knowledge is 
impossible ; and therefore, all reality is known to man as a 
system of active and formative ideas. The world of things 
known by the senses and by self-consciousness is a Unity 
of Will, everywhere manifesting itself as an infinite variety 
of different beings under the guidance of immanent ideas. 
The effort to escape from this conclusion only reacts upon 
itself. Could the effort completely succeed, it would result in 
the complete nullification of knowledge. For the subjection 
of reality to the idea is necessarily co-extensive with the 
entire extent of human knowledge. Indeed, that is just what 
knowledge is, — the recognition of the ideal character of 
concrete realities and of actual events. 

Whose ideas are these that are immanent in the World of 
selves and of things ? A partial answer to this lofty and 
somewhat vague but most important inquiry has already been 
gained. We are irresistibly led on from the facts of the in- 
teraction of elements under law to the existence of a supreme 
Unity which may serve as a real locus for the existence of 
controlling ideas. As Teichmiiller, in his Darwinism and 
Philosophy , says : " The interaction of all the elements pre- 
supposes laws which go beyond the existence of each sepa- 
rate element, and embrace all particular things in a unity. 
Whoever, therefore, assumes any laws of nature whatever, 
must also assume a system of laws, and must consequently 
refer to one ultimate unity or to an ultimate end." The ideas 
therefore, belong to that Being whose Force has been rec- 
ognized as the " unchanging core " of all concrete realities, 
the Cause of all change, the Principle of all becoming, the 
trans-subjective Ground of the formal categories of time and 
space ; and the nature of whose existence authenticates all 
pure science as the result of man's measuring and calculat- 
ing activities. The ideas, in reality, must be joined with this 



FORMS AND LAWS 359 

Unity of Will. But to join Will and Idea together as com- 
bined explanatory principles of all real existences and all 
actual occurrences, is to provide the most essential factors 
in the conception of an Absolute Self. It is. indeed, to con- 
struct the Being of the World after the analogy of the Self. 
It is anthropomorphic. But it is a species of anthropomor- 
phism, from which human knowledge can in no way free 
itself; and without which we are obliged to confess that not 
only the metaphysics of the schools, but also the metaphysics 
of science and the metaphysics of life, becomes self-contra- 
dictory and absurd. 

It is, finally, in connection with the elaborate scientific con- 
ceptions of law that the principle of causation returns upon 
us for further consideration. The connection of the more 
primitive conception of causation with the exercise of force 
in relation to objects, and with the intent to carry out our 
own ideas by effecting changes in things, has already been 
noticed. It is only as a result of the mature developments 
which require a growing experience of the system of things, 
that a conception corresponding to that which modern men 
attach to this principle is attained. The immature will acts 
in ways that are full of caprice and ignorance. It neither 
knows itself, what it wants, nor things, what they can do to 
it or will suffer from it. This raw. irrational self, whether 
in the individual or in the race, constructs its conception 
of nature, or of the gods, after its own pattern. In doing 
this, it has the warrant of all that lies deepest in human 
nature, and of all that is most potent in the history of human 
development. Its essential metaphysics is not so much at 
f ault ; but its ignorance is its curse. The modern concep- 
tions of a " universal reign of law,'* of a rigid ;; uniformity of 
Nature," or a Unity of blind, unreasoning Force, are personi- 
fications of the forces and ideas, projected into things on the 
basis of a postulated analogy between them and us. in essen- 
tially the same way. At bottom the modern conceptions are 



o60 A THEORY OF REALITY. 

just as truly anthropomorphic as the earlier conceptions were. 
But the man whose " form " the conceptions bear is a some- 
what improved man, — more rational, more influenced by 
definite ideas, and better acquainted with the truth that his 
own brief, self-centred life is surrounded and controlled by 
an all-inclusive and eternal Life. 

Just so long and so far, however, as the principle of cau- 
sation is made the equivalent of a rigid and machine-like 
construction of Reality, it suffers inevitably from the imper- 
fections and errors that belong to such a conception. It 
becomes increasingly necessary to recognize the truth — as 
a truth stamped into the very nature of the human mind and 
set in every feature of the Mind of Nature — that all talk of 
a " principle of causation " which does not mean to recognize 
Will and immanent Ideas at the Ground of things, deals with 
unmeaning and senseless figures of speech. That is, indeed, 
just what a " principle of causation " necessarily means — 
Will energizing in conformity to ideal forms and aims. 

In further proof of the metaphysical doctrine of forms 
and laws, let it be noticed to what all our so-called causal 
explanations really amount. The mind regards the principle 
of causation as fully satisfied only when the different real 
beings of the world are considered as so connected that the 
forces, to which their internal changes of condition or their 
external changes of relation are referred, follow some law or 
regular order of occurrence. It is this which is involved in 
all those defective and questionable forms of statement which 
the particular sciences have adopted for this principle. 1 A 
Unity of Force distributed in accordance with immanent 
ideas, — this is the ontological implicate of the modern scien- 
tific view of the world of reality. Every thing, and every 
element of every thing, behaves in accordance with both its 
own nature and also its relation to other things and elements, 

1 For the discussion of this principle from the epistemological point of view, 
see the chapter on " Sufficient Reason," chap, x., Philosophy of Knowledge 



FORMS AND LAW- 361 

in the unity of a connected system. With less metaphysics than 
this, the entire modern conception of the universal applicati o 
of the causal principle, or the so-called "reign of law," must 
be left "."here Hume left it. Xothing remains of the principle 
but subjective custom, together with the feeling of expecta- 
tion which custom creates. For when criticism adds to this 
purely subjective description of the principle an a priori^ and 
so objective, explanation, like that given to it by Kant, this is 
done in reliance on an acquaintance with the ontological 
secrets of the Self. A unity of mind-force, functioning ac- 
cording to its own immanent ideas (the so-called categories), 
creates, we are told, the causal connections, the objective 
laws, of Nature. Thus the principle of causation has its met- 
aphysical source revealed in that it is recognized as belong- 
ing to the inmost constitution of man's intellect. Even the 
illusory and sceptical result which follows the attempt to 
apply the category beyond the realm of the phenomenally 
real is. according to the Kantian doctrine, a revelation of the 
ontological doctrine of mind. This view of the principle :: 
causation, however, leaves man. both on his physical and on 
his rational side, cut off from all actual connection with the 
extra-mentaUy Real. Nature is. indeed, the child of man ; 
but whose child is man himself ? To this question science 
replies that he is the child of Nature. But Kant can only 
reply by a non-scientific, vacillating, and often wholly un- 
intelligible reference to an unknowable " Thing-in-itself " 
Being of the World, which somehow becomes (we cannot say 
••causally") related to an unknown - thing-in-itself " being 
of man. 

The moment, however, the nature of those categories which 
are implied in the principle of causation is clearly discerned, 
the principle itself becomes a guide to the central truth of 
metaphysical system. For this principle shows how far the 
intellectual and scientific development of man has gone in 
bringing before his own clear consciousness the truth of 



362 A THEORY OF REALITY 

all Reality: All selves and all things have their changing 
places and functions in the one system, because the connec- 
tion of them all is guaranteed and accomplished by the One 
Will in its progressive realization of its own Ideas. The 
whole of Reality is, in fact, — 

"An endless weaving 
To and fro, 
A restless heaving 
Of life and glow." 

But the meaning of this fact is found, and its ultimate cause 
discoverable, only when we introduce the conception of an 
eternal, omnipresent u formative Spirit." 



CHAPTER XIV 

TELEOLOGY 

No other topic connected with the attempt to frame a valid 
Theory of Reality has been more thoroughly discussed for 
two thousand years than the conception of final purpose. 
One's views upon the subject of teleology may, therefore, be 
fitly thought to decide in large measure the essential character 
of the system of metaphysics one is inclined to espouse. 
What do you conclude as to the objects of your experience — 
both selves and things — in their relations to ideal ends ? 
The answer which is given to this question goes a long way 
toward fixing the entire mental and practical attitude toward 
Life and toward Reality. But the very thoroughness and 
vigor with which the discussion of the teleological problem 
has been conducted for so many centuries obviates the neces- 
sity for ourselves going over the same details. The facts 
upon which the different views are made to depend remain 
essentially unchanged. They may seem to be increased or 
diminished in number, and to deepen or fade away as respects 
their vital coloring; but their significance and the problem 
they propose for the thinker's solution abide ever the same. 
Nor is it reasonable to suppose that the arguments for, or 
objections against, any of the different main positions which 
have hitherto been adopted by the world's thinkers can be 
altered in any important way. 

It is needful for our purpose, therefore, only briefly to 
define our own positions with reference to the facts, argu- 
ments, and conclusions covered by the word " Teleology. " 



364 A THEORY OF REALITY 

The question proposed in this chapter is scarcely more diffi- 
cult than the following : How does the Theory of Reality 
which has already been advocated orient itself with reference 
to the principal conceptions which are gathered into the doc- 
trine of final purpose, or ideal ends ? But even this com- 
paratively simple question will be furthered if its answer 
is introduced by three remarks which a study of the history 
of opinion suggests and confirms. First: there are certain 
facts about which no dispute is possible ; and these facts are 
themselves of such a nature that they cannot even be ex- 
pressed without introducing the conception of ideal ends as 
necessary to the interpretation of the facts. Just as concep- 
tions of form and of law, when applied to the objects of man's 
knowledge, have no meaning unless the actuality of ideal for- 
mative principles be admitted, so conceptions of serviceable 
internal relations between the parts of things, or of external 
relations of the fitness of one thing to another, prove utterly 
meaningless unless the influence in reality of ideal ends be 
admitted. In a word, these facts cannot be stated as mere 
facts, separate from ideas ; as facts, they are transactions of 
things that are necessarily interpreted as conforming to ideas. 
The point where reflection refuses to recognize the signifi- 
cance of the facts determines one's theory of final purpose as 
an explanatory principle of Reality. 

Second : the difference in the position along the line of fact 
at which different thinkers refuse to admit in their theory of 
reality the actual presence and formative influence of ideal 
ends is significant of a vacillation that is of a logical and epis- 
temological order. The objector to the refusal, at whatever 
point it comes, might well enough say, " Either all or none." 
Either admit the principle of " purposiveness," everywhere 
in the known system of selves and of things, and give to 
the principle wherever found the same sincere and whole- 
hearted interpretation ; or else deny its objective existence 
anywhere and reject it throughout as explanatory of the 



TELEOLOGY 365 

being and transactions of things. But it is impossible to 
denv that actual final purposes are explanatory principles 
of the changes in condition and relation of some things. 
Such scepticism would undermine all knowledge and render 
social life, and individual and generic development, absolutely 
impossible. The exact place, where scepticism begins, or 
knowledge ends and agnosticism triumphs, is differently 
selected by different thinkers. It is always xcry instructive 
to notice the alleged grounds on which this exact place is 
selected; if, indeed, it can be fixed even by the thinker him- 
self. In few cases, if any, can the arrested development of 
interpretation by the principle of purposiveness be defended 
with a strict logical consistency. The metaphysician who 
hesitates in his teleology is almost certainly doomed to be 
convicted of a half-cowardly inconclusiveness in his dealing 
with the actual behavior of the concrete beings of the world. 
Either all, or none, of our known Reality sooner or later 
feels the influence of this form of the Idea. 

But, third, when one seeks for the motif of these intellectual 
differences in the teleology of different systems of metaphysics, 
— whether by way of avowed and rational conclusion, or of 
naive, unconscious submission to unrecognized influences, — 
some admixture of the ethical and the religious is almost cer- 
tain to appear. It is not an unmeaning fact of human history 
that a positive and even dogmatic ethics, or theology, has 
been accustomed to espouse and defend a pronounced and 
extended teleology ; while agnosticism, or negation, in matters 
of ethical and religious reflection has customarily taken the 
opposite position toward the doctrine of final purpose. Theism 
has always based itself upon the so-called " teleological argu- 
ment," in one form or another ; materialism and atheism have 
always either rejected wholly or greatly minimized the same 
argument. This they have done by refusing either to accept 
the alleged facts or to interpret the principle of purposiveness 
in the theisti? way. Unbiased judgment and calm reasoning 



366 A THEORY OF REALITY 

— if by these words one is to signify freedom from influence 
by, and interest in, ethical and religious considerations — is 
almost nowhere to be found in the discussion of this problem. 
He who claims such freedom may easily be suspected either 
of ignorance or of the intention to cover up the real issues of 
the problem he is attempting to handle. For what is, in fact, 
at stake in all these discussions is just this, — namely, the 
idea which humanity shall find itself justified in entertain- 
ing as to the Nature of Reality, and so the practical attitude 
which man shall assume toward this objective Idea. 

Upon all these three contested matters the course of the 
critical discussion which has already been followed leads us to 
take our positions firmly. Nothing short of complete thorough- 
ness here would comport well with the critical work already 
accomplished. In the first place, we find it impossible to limit 
anywhere the conception of final purpose in its application to 
the concrete facts of reality, — anywhere, that is, in a logical 
and principled way. The ignorance of man, which is either 
partial or almost complete in every realm of inquiry, limits his 
ability to recognize the particular final purposes served by the 
concrete facts of his experience. The obscurity which hangs 
like an impenetrable cloud over the beginning and the conclud- 
ing portions of the present system of things makes it im- 
possible for him to demonstrate the final aim of the World's 
course. The scale of rising ideas, that tower one above 
another until they lose themselves in the heights of the loftiest 
assthetical and ethical ideals, or that lie one below another 
until imagination cannot longer conjecture the ultimate foun- 
dations of reality, is too vast for his intuition to discern surely 
or for his calculation to measure precisely. But wherever 
man's knowledge does go, there does it find the presence in- 
dicated of formative principles due to ideal ends. In other 
words, the facts of purposiveness seem coextensive with the 
facts of knowledge. All things and all minds in their struc- 
ture, development, and relations give token of ideal ends to 



TELEOLOGY 367 

our cognitive faculties. And without the significant influence 
of this category there is not a thing or transaction known that 
is really and satisfactorily known. The Idea as an explana- 
tory principle of the course of events — whether that course 
consist in changes of internal condition or in changes of 
external relations — is coextensive with all known Reality. 

On the second point, also, we cannot allow ourselves to 
falter in the logic which draws conclusions as to the signifi- 
cance of human cognitive experience. All Reality is, — as 
known to man or conceivable by man — a system of beings 
and processes co-operating in the realization of ideal ends. 
This system is, in reality and in its inmost nature, purposive. 
Ideas guide it all, not only in respect of the forms which its 
particular beings take and its particular events follow, but 
also in respect of the final purposes it pursues. We do not 
simply imagine that this may be so, or think that it ought to 
be so ; we know that it is so. The shaping of the changes 
that go on within the individual, or between related things, so 
as to realize ideal ends, is an integral part of man's expe- 
rience with things. When these ideas, too, are declared to be 
" immanent,"' the adjective is not used with a spatial or purely 
figurative meaning ; it is only asserted that this aspect of the 
ideal is a necessary factor in the rational explanation of con- 
crete realities. For Reality, in general, is known as actually 
being a Unity of Force guided by ideas of form and law into 
processes that conform to ideal ends. Indeed, final purpose is 
only a further extension of the Idea beyond that given to it 
by the doctrine of real forms and actual laws. Scepticism 
and agnosticism have their legitimate place in contesting all 
rash and inconsiderate conclusions as to what are the ends 
served by particular beings and particular events, or by the 
entire system of selves and things. On the other hand, the 
whole known and knowable world must be conceived of as 
somehow conforming to the principle of teleology. 

And with reference to the third position we do not hesitate 



368 A THEORY OF REALITY 

as to where our theory of reality requires us to be found. To 
make universal and far-reaching the immanence of the ideal, 
is, of course, to philosophize in a way serviceable to the 
interests of morals and religion. But, then, this is itself 
chiefly because teleology gives continuity to human knowledge, 
and brings within the ken of the same cognitive activities all 
the varied forms of human experience. The whole subject of 
that deplorable schism between the natural and the moral, be- 
tween the object of knowledge and the object of faith, between 
the merely ( ?) mechanical and the purely ideal, or the phenom- 
enal reality and the Thing-in-itself, comes to the fore in the 
discussions of teleology. This schism we distrust and abhor. 
It is not, however, by the identification of what is essentially 
unlike, or by the neglect of all the truths and interests which 
belong on either side of the chasm, that one may expect the 
chasm to be crossed. It is rather by intelligent recognition 
of the nature of that ideal Unity which belongs to the knower, 
and as well to all the objects which he knows or can ever expect 
to know. The knowledge of this knower is one, — a unity that 
is a continuity of development under guidance of the ideal. 
This ideal is that of the perfect Self ; and this perfect self 
cannot be a mere knower, much less a mere knower of things, 
without knowledge of its own self, and of that larger and uni- 
versal Self which unifies all other selves and things. And 
just as there are sesthetical and ethical "momenta" in all 
knowledge ; so there are at least fragmentary and shadowy 
83sthetical and ethical factors in all things. All Things 
actually serve some ends. The teleological construction of 
the system of things and selves is, therefore, a most important 
conception to cherish ; but the conception must be subjected 
to criticism, if one would not willingly be divided against one's 
self, in a World that would thus be made at hopeless contra- 
diction with its larger Self. 

All things and events are in fact purposeful ; the conclusion 
is legitimate, which recognizes in the real world the universal 



TELEOLOGY 369 

presence of immanent ideal ends; the basis, but not the 
completion, of the edifice of moral and religious ideals as 
belonging to the inmost Nature of Reality is thus made a 
rational tenet of metaphysical philosophy; — such are the 
three important positions to which we find ourselves brought 
by reflection upon the fundamental facts and primitive truths 
of man's experience with both selves and things. 

The psychological genesis of the conception of final purpose 
is not at all obscure, although it is complex. This conception 
arises in experience primarily when the satisfaction of some 
desire is willed, and then those means for its actualization are 
employed which it is apprehended will result in actual satis- 
faction of the desire. The completer conception is, indeed, 
that of intelligent and purposeful willing, — of action guided 
by ideas in the plan to attain the ends set by ideas. Thus there 
is ground in experience for the description which Yolkmann 
gives of all the higher forms of behavior on the part of the 
Willing Self. 1 

Xo immediate causal connection exists, however, for man's 
apprehension, between any particular desire and its satisfac- 
tion ; and all that the later developments of desire can do is 
to lend to the desire an ideal form which opens or expands 
the outlook to its satisfaction. A detachment of the desire 
from the original idea is, therefore, necessary ; and as well, a 
further attachment of the desire to that series of ideas which 
experience has found to lie between it and the original desire 
(the " means " to the " end "). The means themselves then 
become desired and selected as means to an ideal end. Thus 
the causal activity of the self comes to have fuller play with 
the first and last pair of the members to the series in its own 
inner world ; while the causal activity of things determines 
the median members of the series in the external world. We 
can choose the ends we will try to secure and the course of 
actions we will follow in the effort to attain them ; but these 

1 Lehrbuch. der Psychologie, II., p. 451 f. 
*24 



370 A THEORY OF REALITY 

very choices link us in with those courses of extra-mental 
changes that lie beyond our choice, and often beyond the 
reach of our ideas. Thus does final purpose, or the willing of 
desired ideal ends, mediate and bind together the combinations 
that constantly go on between the life of the self and the 
world of external things. 

It is not necessary to trace the development of this concep- 
tion of final purpose, or its application to the entire being and 
life-course of the Self. As we have elsewhere said, on gather- 
ing together the conclusions of a detailed descriptive history 
into those principles which are most fundamental and univer- 
sal in their control over human life and destiny : " Activity 
to some purpose is the ruling principle of mental development." 
In this complex life, under the keener eye of trained experi- 
ence many final ends of a physical and psychical sort, which 
the self at first unconsciously serves or attains, become con- 
sciously discerned and followed. Indeed, the growth of self- 
knowledge is largely just this, — namely, the making of the 
ideal ends which our so-called " nature " sets for us to be our 
own consciously and intelligently adopted ideas. To attain 
genuine self-knowledge one must know what the self is meant 
for, as truly as what is the matter-of-fact working of its 
mechanism of body and mind. But, on the other hand, under 
the laws of practice and habit, many ideal ends, that were at 
first realizable only through conscious discrimination and 
voluntary effort, come to realize themselves smoothly and 
unconsciously, in a so-called automatic and mechanical way. 
For the teleology of the human being requires that in the 
pursuit and attainment of many ends the interference of con- 
scious ideas shall be removed. Thus do art and genius often 
show the man as he is swayed and guided by the ideas of 
" another " into a path whose end is the more perfect realiza- 
tion of the highest and noblest ideals. A human being that 
were not through and through actually penetrated with pur- 
posiveness would not rise to the rank of the lowest conceivable 



TELEOLOGY 371 

physical and psychical mechanism. For, as will appear sub- 
sequently, the very conception of a " mechanism " is meaning- 
less without illumination from the idea of means and ends. 
And, in fact, the more I know of myself, the more do I know of 
those ideal ends of my being which I have been consciously or 
unconsciously realizing. The lamentation that no one knows 
surely, or with any approach to completeness, what is the last 
and highest end of his particular existence and development, 
is a valid confession of ignorance ; but it is not, in the slightest 
degree, a fact which prejudices the universal applicability of 
the conception of final purpose in self-knowledge. 

The validity of this form of knowledge for the being of 
man is, like that of every other category, within the neces- 
sary limitations of all human mental life, immediate and 
undoubted. If I examine that " stream of consciousness " I 
call myself, as such, I find that its nature and its course 
require the conception of final purpose for its interpretation. 
I know indubitably that I reach the satisfaction of my desires 
by willing a certain series of occurrences which involve both 
subjective and objective factors, causally connected and result- 
ing in the actual satisfaction of these desires. And the de- 
veloping science of humanity consists, in no small measure, in 
learning how certain ideas, which arise within the stream of 
consciousness (ideas of the final purpose of man in general 
and of the individual in particular) , enable one better to under- 
stand the nature and connections of the entire stream. This 
is the meaning of the modern tendency to render all the 
sciences of man more thoroughly psychological. 

Xor can there be reasonable dispute over the contention 
that certain thing-objects are known, in respect of their own 
structure and development, to come under the conception of 
final purpose. The judgments which affirm that this concep- 
tion is applicable to certain physical beings are as truly and 
indisputably cognitive as any judgments can possibly be. 
The fact which such judgments affirm is precisely this, — the 



372 A THEORY OF REALITY 

complex fact of purposiveness as belonging to the very exist- 
ence and essence of the thing. To take the stock example 
— much used and much derided : the entire structure and all 
the functions of the human eye are known as coming in fact 
under the conception of final purpose. This statement is as 
true of the picture of this organ when given by the most 
elaborate modern treatise on anatomy and physiology as it is of 
the most nai've and uninstructed conception of the same organ. 
Indeed, what the modern treatise does, for the most part, is to 
elaborate and give precision and detail to the teleology of this 
particular thing. For without the conception of final purpose, 
" structure " and " functions " are words that have no mean- 
ing. The very term " human eye," means a structure whose 
function is to enable man to see. Every part of this complex 
mechanism answers with equal promptness and cogency to the 
same demand of the inquiring mind. A " lens " is an arrange- 
ment of elements whose behavior serves the end of transmit- 
ting and reflecting light ; and the lenses of the eye have, in 
fact, this final purpose in the structure and functions of the 
eye. The retina is a complex structure, about the details of 
which there are still some doubtful points ; but about the 
final purpose of this part of the organ, there exists no doubt ; 
it has the ideal end of serving as a sensitive, nervous screen on 
which the image of the object can be formed, and from which 
the appropriate nervous changes can be transmitted to the 
visual areas of the brain. 

To say that all such teleological statement of fact is 
" anthropomorphic " has absolutely no influence on a conten- 
tion like ours. For our contention is just this, that the facts 
of many of man's most assured cognitions are concrete examples 
of the rule of final purpose over things. Or, to put the case in 
a slightly different way, certain things are known, as a matter 
of incontestable fact, to be composed of parts and elements 
which are arranged, and which function together, so as actu- 
ally to secure ideal ends. To call such cognitions " anthropo- 



TELEOLOGY 373 

morpliic " is to do them honor rather than to discredit them. 
It is cowardice to be frightened away from the legitimate logi- 
cal fruits of such a many-branched tree of knowledge ; and it 
is folly to deny the existence of these fruits, simply because it 
is with the eyes of reason that we see them hanging there. 
Knowledge is not less trustworthy, and things are not less real, 
when things are known to have such a structure and such 
functions as to comport, in reality, with ideal ends. 

The comparative crudity of the physico-chemical science of 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with which Kant was 
acquainted, led him to limit the facts of final purpose to 
certain more obviously organic natural products. " Things," 
he declared, " regarded as natural purposes, are organized 
beings ; " 2 and " only a product of such a kind can be called a 
natural purpose, and this because it is an organized and self- 
organizing being." Elsewhere he even affirms that such an. 
organized and purposeful being must have its cause, " not in 
the mechanism of nature, but in a being whose faculty of 
action is determined through concepts : " in short, " it is 
requisite that its form be not possible according to mere 
natural laws." It is scarcely necessary again to remind our- 
selves that the very words " form," " mechanism of nature," 
and " natural laws," are devoid of meaning unless applied to 
forces that act causally in conformity to ideas. Indeed, man's 
entire thought of nature is only that of a Being whose action 
is determined through concepts ; other action than this is in- 
conceivable as resulting in any such " mechanism," " system," 
;t unity," collection of forms obeying laws, as is fitly meant by 
the word Nature ; and surely not less when we personify the 
word enough to spell it with a capital. 

But special attention must be called to the important change 
whicli modern evolutionary science has made in such a term 
as that employed by Kant, — " an organized and self -organizing 

1 Kritik of Judgment, Part II.,Div. I., heading of § 65. The other sentences 
are taken from this and the preceding article. 



£574 A THEORY OF REALITY 

being." Chemistry and biology — not to speak of psychology 

— have outstripped mathematical physics in the conception 
which they have prepared as a content for this Kantian phrase. 
By this statement it is not meant that the distinction between 
living and non-living beings has been abolished or made less 
important by modern science. On the contrary, this distinc- 
tion is now more clearly established than it was in the time of 
Kant. For it is now known, somewhat better than was then 
known, what is the " Technic of nature ; " although we know 
scarcely better whether the " womb " of " mother Earth " can be 
supposed at any time to have tolerated such a generatio cequi- 
voca as Kant pronounced absurd (namely, the production of an 
organized being through the mechanics of crude, unorganized 
matter). What is known clearly, however, and in spite of 
all continued doubt about the problem of the beginnings of life, 
is this : Everything is u an organized and self-organizing 
being," in no insignificant meaning of these words. 

The chemico-physical and biological sciences — we repeat 

— in their most modern form compel us to regard every physi- 
cal thing, whether living or non-living, as an " organized and 
self-organizing being." They emphasize the declaration of 
Schelling : " The peculiarity of nature rests on the fact that 
with all its mechanism it is yet full of purpose." Crystals 
do not grow, indeed, but they are organized in teleological 
fashion and by " self-organizing " processes. The same truth 
follows with respect to the interior structure of every real 
Thing, as a necessary corollary from the very nature of the 
physical elements themselves. Every so-called " natural " 
being is a composite of these elements, that have arranged 
themselves in definite ways, and that act and react upon each 
other as parts of a quasi-organic totality. Strictly regarded, 
this totality is perpetually organizing itself anew, in accord- 
ance with the specific idea which belongs to its own kind of 
existence. 

The more completely the grounds of this organific proced- 



TELEOLOGY 375 

ure of all things are carried back to the original and unchang- 
ing constitution of the atoms themselves, the more is the 
" self-organizing being " of the atoms loaded down with an 
ever-increasing weight of content. For if the atoms are not 
themselves organized under the guidance of ideas, by the ac- 
tivity of still more primitive elements, they none the less bear 
the marks of " manufactured articles." That is to say, their 
nature and outfit shows them adapted, from the first, to serve 
an almost endless variety of ideal ends. If they are regarded 
as not developing the faculty of " action as determined through 
concepts," it is because they are regarded as possessing this 
faculty from the first ; and only thus can any organization or 
building take place, whether of living or non-living things. 
A circle, or regular hexagon, inscribed in the sand, Kant 
thinks, any man might well consider a sure sign of final 
purpose ; but why not the geometrical structure of the sand 
itself, considered as the result attained by the action, in time, 
of organific forces ? 

To return to a categorical truth emphasized in an earlier 
chapter (chap, v.) : " really to be" a Thing is to possess some- 
how the faculty, or power, of running through a certain series 
of changes — of active doings and passive impressions — that 
corresponds to the concept of that particular thing. When 
any being ceases to have this faculty or power, it loses all 
means of manifesting itself to man's mind as really in exist- 
ence at all. The inherent teleology, or purposeness in fact, of 
every real thing belongs to its very being as a " Tiling." 

That conception of final purpose which simply covers the 
bare being of a thing, considered as a collection of self-organ- 
izing material elements (the physical " in-itself-being " of the 
natural product), is indeed very inadequate. Men do not 
make things, and keep them in existence, with the simple 
purpose of having the things exist ; men make things as 
means either to an enjoyment of them, or to the attainment 
of other ends which lie bevond and above the manufactured 



376 A THEORY OF REALITY 

articles. Here is where the objection of Kant to what he 
considered an unwarrantable extension of the very conception 
of purposiveness found an entrance into his teleology. " For if 
all things," he argues, " must be thought as purposes, then to 
be a thing is the same thing as to be a purpose, and there is 
at bottom nothing which especially deserves to be represented 
as purpose." Here, indeed, is a most curious and instructive 
mixture of truth and error. It does not, indeed, follow that 
" being a Thing " = " being a purpose," because real things 
are much more than mere purposes ; on the other hand, no 
thing can be real, can really be, unless it conforms its elements 
and their functions to the ideal ends of that particular kind of 
thing. Or to speak the same truth from another point of 
view : the physical elements, in their combining and reciprocal 
functioning, must organize every physical being in accordance 
with certain ideal ends. For atoms are not " manufactured," 
simply to exist themselves. They are so made as to serve the 
higher uses and manifold purposes of the things which are 
composed " of" them. 

In man's complete cognitive experience with things, they 
serve his ends and he serves theirs ; and he also observes, or 
infers, the different things to be serving each other's ends. 
This is what Kant calls x " external purposiveness," or " that 
by which one thing of nature serves another as means to a 
purpose." And about this kind of purposiveness he makes 
the following truly amazing observation : " There is only one 
external purposiveness which is connected with the internal 
purposiveness of organization, and yet serves in the external 
relation of a means to an end, without the question necessarily 
arising, as to what end this being so organized must have ex- 
isted for." This is the organization of the sexes in their 
mutual relation as propagators of their kind. But a more 
refined biological study of this very example leads us to see 
that the entire system of plant and animal life is one complex 

1 Kritik of Judgment, Part II., Appendix, § 82. 



TELEOLOCxY 377 

net-work of relations under the principle of combining internal 
and external purposiveness, in order to carry out an indefi- 
nite variety of nearer or more remote ideal ends. 

Nothing is more mysterious and impressive than the interac- 
tion of natural forces — both those that are internal to the 
organism and may be called vital, and also those that are ex- 
ternal and may be assigned to environment — in the propaga- 
tion and development of species. Small wonder, indeed, that 
Schopenhauer found in this arrangement some of the shrewdest 
devices of the " Will-to-live," in its subjugation of all existences. 
under the limitations of space, time, and causation, to its eter- 
nal and relentless purposes ! It is not the single pair alone 
that is concerned, in a purposeful way. in the interests of the 
perpetuation of life. Biological evolution regards every thing, 
and every transaction of the physico-chemical order, in the 
light of this conception of " Life." and of the progress of liv- 
ing forms toward higher and still higher life. Thus, under 
the conception of ideal ends, modern biology arranges all the 
beings and transactions of living and non-living things as 
somehow terminating in man. Arrived at this stage in its 
pursuit of the final purpose of the world's course, it does not 
stop here. It transfers all the principal conceptions and funda- 
mental laws of biology to the life of the individual man. and 
to the life of the human race in history. Undoubtedly much 
of this so-called science, whether it take the name of " generic 
psychology ." "anthropology." or "sociology." amounts to 
rather a vague and uncertain generalization of facts that 
belong to man's descriptive history. — the expression of 
which in accurate terms discloses no little illusion and use of 
misleading and inapplicable figures of speech. For it is by 
no means self-evident what that corresponds to any actual 
processes, or to any real connections, is meant by such phrases 
as "heredity." •• survival of fittest." " struggle for existence.'' 
" generatio univoca." and " generatio oequivoca" u epigenesis ? ' 
and - biogenesis.'' etc., when applied to these not strictly bio- 



378 A THEORY OF REALITY 

logical sciences. But that the concrete beings with which the 
theory of biological evolution primarily deals are " organized 
and self-organizing," there can be no doubt. Thus this theory 
distinctly extends what Kant called the conception of " ex- 
ternal purposiveness " over all the phenomena which it attempts 
to handle. Thus the most thorough biologist, from the top- 
most peaks as his scientific standpoints, describes the meaning 
of that part of the universe which his science gives him to 
know as already past, — in the words of Browning : — 

" So far the seal 
Is put on life ; one step of being complete, 
One scheme wound up ; and from the grand result 
A supplementary reflux of light, 
Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains 
Each back step in the circle." 

From the same point of view the man of science looks for- 
ward, and in the name of science confirms the hopeful pre- 
dictions of the same poet : — 

" For things tend still upward, progress is 
The law of life, man is not Man as yet." 

There are always — 

"August anticipations, symbols, types 
Of a dim splendor ever on before 
In that eternal circle life pursues." 

To object that such forms of knowing the relations of 
things, and the series of changes that are taking place in the 
world, are mere statements of fact, and may be wholly 
abstracted from the idea of final purpose as necessary to 
explain the fact, is a complete mistatement of the case. For 
the general fact is itself precisely this : the fact of a series 
of infinitely complex and constantly changing transactions, 
entered into by all the concrete beings concerned, in such a 
way as actually to realize ideal ends. That is to say, facts of 
the sort which the theory of evolution considers cannot be 



TELEOLOGY 379 

known at all, otherwise than in their relation to some teleolo 
gical conception. The meaning of the entire series of facts, 
as actually arranged and viewed in the light of the ideal 
ends to he secured, is essential to the knowledge of the 
facts themselves. 

Any one instance of the requisite kind, when all that is 
implicated in its description has heen critically considered, is 
quite enough to show that " external purposiveness " is every- 
where an actualized idea in Nature. Let one reflect, for 
example, over the following description of the manner in 
which the " Perigord Truffle " realizes its <; will to live," and 
to possess as much as possible, according to its own nature, of 
that Nature from whose womb it springs. The following is 
said to be its behavior, 4i for a fact : " " The spores of the 
truffle are of different sexes. In favorable conditions, and 
after rupture of the envelope of the mother-cell that incloses 
them, the male spores emit a thin, translucent filament, 
terminated by a spore of secondary formation, a pseudo- 
spore, in which the fertilizing plasma is contained. This 
pseudo-spore, whether it remains on the surface or is formed 
under the epidermis is impelled, as by a mysterious instinct, 
to move out toward a female spore, which it reaches either 
directly or by putting forth a new sprout. . . . The fertiliza- 
tion, which may begin a week after the spores have been set 
free, ordinarily takes one to two days. When it has been 
accomplished, the female spore gives out what are called 
teleutospores, which, falling to the ground, give rise to the 
mycelium or thread-like vegetation, more or less temporary, 
which in its turn produces the tubercles." 1 

Nature abounds in just such series of facts as that above 
described. Indeed, this is what is meant by - Nature," in the 
larger significance of the word : — namely, a vast and intricate 
system of beings that have been during indefinite time, are 
now. and will be, moving onward in a course of realizing, one 
1 Taken from " La Nature," Feb. 12th, 1896. 



380 A THEORY OF REALITY 

after another, an indefinite multitude of ideal ends. These 
ends are far too numerous and intricate for man fully to know. 
The one ultimate and supreme end, if only one such there be, 
the human mind may easily enough be far from able to define 
or even dimly to descry. The final purposes of this system 
of beings are as intricate and even more hidden than are its 
efficient causes, and its net-work of so-called laws. But 
sooner will we follow Clifford in his dream-like theory of a 
universally diffused " mind-stuff," or Fechner in his theory 
of souls in plants, than believe that the structure, develop- 
ment, and relations of thiugs can be understood within the 
Unity of that process of Becoming which our cognitive ex- 
perience presents, without recognizing the guidance of nature's 
forces by immanent ideas. 

In a word, the nature of knowledge, as epistemology in- 
vestigates its problem, : shows us how the mind, in judgment, 
reasoning, investigation, and reflection, illustrates by all its 
cognitive activities its own immanent teleology. The knower 
knows his own being and doings as linking him in with all 
other beings, with the objects known, in the realization of 
ideal ends. So, on the other hand, all progress in objective 
knowledge, in the science of the structure and relations of 
things, as they play their several parts in the boundless and 
unceasing Process of Becoming, emphasizes the trans-subjec- 
tive application of the category of final purpose. It is in the 
use of this category, and in the confidence of his ability to 
understand Reality in terms of this category, that man's 
knowledge constantly enlarges its sphere. And were it not 
for certain objections designed to forestall the more uncertain 
conclusions from this line of argument, when it is carried 
somewhat too smoothly over from the metaphysics of physics 
to the metaphysics of ethics, aesthetics, and religion, it is 
hard to see why some such theoretical position should not be 
universally accepted. 

1 On this point, see the author's "Philosophy of Knowledge," Chapter xvi. 



TELEOLOGY 381 

Since we must postpone the discussion of teleology within 
the realm of the higher ideals of conduct, art. faith, and 
worship, we might safely leave this form of the category of 
the Idea to take its place among the others in a metaphysical 
system that aims to build itself upon a foundation of objec- 
tive facts. But a few words to indicate how the objections 
— so often presented and answered in the history of teleologi- 
cal discussion — bear upon the positions assumed hitherto, 
will be found serviceable at this point. 

The old-fashioned, external, and non-vital manner of regard- 
ing the final purposes of nature was brought to a close by the 
triumphs of biological evolution. Such teleology was made 
impossible to minds thoroughly imbued with the facts 
and spirit of modern science. But most of the arguments 
recently urged against the idea of final purpose as applied to 
physical realities are as little calculated to remain influential 
in their original form as were the conceptions they are in- 
tended to refute. This is perhaps especially true of the 
argument from alleged instances of useless, or defective and 
even injurious organs, within the system belonging to certain 
highly developed animal organisms. One not invaluable 
result of much controversy has been that both parties to it, 
since they have grown wiser as to facts, have also grown less 
sure of their own immature interpretation of facts. And if 
theologians have become more inclined to leave biologists and 
physiologists free to tell what functions particular parts of 
i; organized and self-organizing beings " actually perform, the 
latter have received some well-merited rebukes for their 
earlier efforts to characterize as useless, or injurious, certain 
parts of various organisms. Striking instances are to be found 
in the history of modern opinion with reference to the final 
purpose of the so-called " internally secreting glands." Twenty 
years ago it would indeed have required extraordinary cour- 
age to affirm that human life could possibly be maintained in 
default of the functions of the stomach, about the use of which 



382 A THEORY OF REALITY 

in the economy of the human body, no room for doubt seemed 
possible. At that time, however, it was not at all " unscien- 
tific " to consign to the class of worthless or injurious lumps 
of tissue, as remnants of past stages of evolution, the thyroid, 
para-thyroid, and auxiliary thyroid glands. But it seems now 
a demonstrated fact that the highly complex organism of man 
can continue its existence after losing the services of the 
central part of its digestive system. On the contrary, recent 
discoveries show that, in some manner which awaits de- 
tailed explanation, these more obscure and smaller gland-like 
portions of man's body are absolutely essential to the vital 
physiological rhythm of the entire structure. He that loses 
these despised bits of matter dies more surely than he that 
loses the more imposing organ. With this discovery comes 
the proposal to use thyroid glands, excised from our humble 
brethren the sheep, for the cure of monstrous diseases of the 
same glands, and their dependent tissues, in man. Nor does 
the medical expert think fit any longer to sneer at this ex- 
ample of the way in which the lower animals are actually 
made to serve the final purposes of man, — at least, until 
perchance he hears of some theologian suggesting that God 
gave thyroid glands to sheep for this express purpose. Pos- 
sibly in time it will be a matter of equally well assured 
knowledge that thyroid glands in sheep have both an " in- 
ternal " and an " external purposiveness ; " and that the two 
final purposes, if not to be defined in any single sentence, are 
not by any means necessarily contradictory. 

The pineal gland too has had a not uninstructive history 
during the recent years of active physiological research. 
After falling from the high estate given to it by the Cartesian 
philosophy, which found there a fitting seat for the soul, it 
seemed entitled only to the rating accorded to any useless 
fold of membrane, — a senseless bit, left over from those pro- 
cesses by which nature had worked her way upward to that 
most wonderful of all her products, the human brain. But 



TELEOLOGY 3S3 

recent investigations here also tend to show that this uart of 
the organism, which bulks little and tuts forth no sign :t any 

rurtuse to serve aednite w:mts. is. after all. a very essential 

aVect nselessness. and e~en mischief-making functions, 
must pribably be awarded m the human avv-. ..'...: .- •."-'"- 
mis. It would be well. how erne, t; reserve dual J aa_ment 

Peabtless — to take amther example — it may be hell, in 
virw :.f present facts, that plant-lice were male for ants to 
pen up and rank as their cows, ana for lady-bugs to feei upon 
entire; while in this ~u the ants themselves render services 
to man in a slight measure compensatory for the mischief 



Jestmg aseae. tue argument - : :_ .:-• .::i :n gene: 
whether ureed for :r against the muneime of teleoloaw. 



F:r this c 



~_ an- jDit -t. 1 ne tcleuxugtcui arcmmeut a ms tue ratner 

that the recognition of ideal ends, of internal and external 
purposiveness in all things, is an integral part of our fuller 
unovueage :: them : ana mat vr r rmd things, in fact, answ er- 

mauaintauee in mis *~ay. Xo sooner is any staralingly new 
aatural product, or force, or transaction, or relation, discov- 
ered by the mind of man. than he begins to raise his raestion- 

the quality of the current stock of human knowledge. Ls not 
the world of phvsicists "usr now interested in the mixta the.- 



384 A THEORY OF REALITY 

retical and practical inquiry : What ends, in the world of 
things, are served by X-rays ; or by liquefied hydrogen ? 
And, if the former can be seen to serve surgical science, and 
the latter to improve the art of producing explosives, we shall 
know more about both. The thinker is as truly convicted of 
the attempt to reconstruct an obsolete " carpenter theory " of 
Reality who denies the immanent presence of ideas in their 
known realizations of the factual order, as is the thinker who 
tries to reduce the causal explanation and total significance of 
the X-rays, or of liquefied hydrogen, to these two limited 
forms of human ideal ends. 

Substantially the same points of view must be maintained 
when it is discovered that much of the mechanism of nature 
is defective, or injurious, as regards the realization of certain 
human ideals. Here the ordinary jests of the opponents of the 
principle of teleology become sorry enough. For example, 
that oft-repeated declaration of the German professor, who 
declared the human eye to be so poor a piece of mechanism 
for the purpose of perfect vision that he would not accept its 
like from any maker of optical instruments. This particular 
jest would be no less sorry if it could not easily be pointed 
out that a perfect optical instrument would be of compara- 
tively little practical use when set in the human forehead. 
For it is just that self-adjusting, that vital and perpetually 
" self-organizing," activity of this organ which most compels 
the intelligent recognition of its internal and external pur- 
posiveness. Nor is the purposiveness of this organ the less, 
but vastly the more impressive when we trace its evolution 
from the beginning, and its multiform self-adaptations to the 
great variety of organs and of environments in which its pur- 
poses must be attained. Were this not so, however, defective 
organs may be no less purposive than are perfect organs. In 
order to maintain the application of the idea of final purpose 
to all the known productions and transactions of nature, it is 
not at all necessary that she should be considered as ideally 



TELEOLOGY 385 

exact in her work. If she seems to waste her tools, so 
does she also seem to waste her energy. And time, with 
its infinite opportunity for repeated trials in the effort to 
perfect her work, belongs without limit to the opportunity 
of nature. 

Nowhere else is the current logical inconsistency with re- 
gard to the teleological conception of nature more apparent 
than in certain circles of biologists. As students of a natural 
science, they are eager to throw the light of ideal ends upon 
every portion of natural mechanism, and upon the whole 
course of nature's working from the remotest discernible, or 
conjectural, past down to the present hour. Each individual 
plant and animal is described by them as a beautiful whole, 
illumined in every part by the light of the ends served by 
each part. Teeth, jaws, intestinal tract, muscular connections 
of the limbs and the terminal claws, have mutually reacting 
functions as bound together by the principle of internal pur- 
posiveness. But these same organs, as related to the pres- 
ervation and development of the individual and of the species, 
serve as instances of external purposiveness as well. Modern 
evolution makes no complaints over waste of life, or waste of 
time, or suffering through fierceness of struggle, or extinction 
of many species and exhaustion of many environments, if 
only the great totality of the World-Process may go on toward 
its obscure and far-off goal. But let attention once be di- 
rected from the actual causal efficiency of the mechanism 
definitively to the ideas that set the ends to the mechanism, 
and let the suggestion be made that these ideas, too, must 
somehow find their resting-place in Reality, and how quickly 
is the attitude changed toward the teleological explanation. 
That Nature (or, if you please, God) should " deliberately 
intend," should " will in conformity to ideal ends," that ani- 
mals should struggle ceaselessly together, should devour each 
other, and proceed upward in the biological scale only by 
rough and blood-stained paths, — that Nature should behave, 

25 



386 A THEORY OF EEALITY 

indeed, as scientific evolution claims that she has behaved, — 
is now made the occasion of scornful denial or of flippant jest. 
But why should this be, unless it involves a recognition of the 
potency, in the interpretation of the objective facts, which 
belongs to man's assthetical and ethical ideas ? Nature has 
not indeed brought forth, from her prolific womb, her chil- 
dren in accordance with the most refined ideas of the more 
highly correct way. She has not followed modern bedroom 
or drawing-room manners in her conduct of life. But this 
very criticism itself is a positive proof of the inescapable char- 
acter of man's cognition of all things. He will not be 
thwarted in the general obligation to ascribe ideal ends of 
some sort to natural processes and to natural developments ; 
but he may well enough practise caution, and confess igno- 
rance, when asked to declare what, in particular, these ends 
are. Such a limitation, however, belongs to man's science 
quite as much as to his ethical and religious faith. Its lesson 
may well be that Nature (or God in nature) must be taken as 
you find her. The final purposes she follows are to be learned 
from her, not dictated to her. 

It is in connection with the modern idea of mechanism, 
and the extension of this idea to a complete supremacy over 
the whole realm of concrete existences, that some of the 
stoutest objections have been raised to a teleology which 
advocates rather a supremacy of ideas of ends. To these ob- 
jections, it has been customary for a certain class of writers 
to answer that the two principles are not mutually exclusive ; 
mechanism and mechanical causation, on the one hand, and 
purposiveness and ideal aims on the other hand, may at least 
coexist, if they do not assist each other. Kant, however, 
claimed that the union of these two principles is not . 
rationally comprehensible. 1 The principle of mechanism 
must beheld as the universal and necessary — the a priori 
— form of all cognition of physical events ; the principle 

1 See the "Kritik of Judgment," Part II., Appendix, § 81. 



TELEOLOGY 387 

of purposiveness is only a tenable article of a faith which 
answers to the need that God, as the postulated moral 
World- Cause, should thus render an obvious support to the 
keeping of the moral law. We know that things actually 
exist, and events really happen, under the principle of 
mechanism ; we are entitled to act as though physical 
things and events, were parts of the ideal plan of a right- 
eous and almighty Ruler, in the interests of the moral de- 
velopment of mankind. In all his discussion of these two 
principles, in their mutual relations, Kant gives away with 
one hand far more than he need, while with the other hand 
he takes back far more than he can rightfully claim or suc- 
cessfully hold. We are warranted in going far beyond the 
Kantian teleology with the claim that the purposiveness of 
Nature — both internal and external — is a truth established 
by all man's growing knowledge of natural things and natural 
events ; but we cannot rise, as the great critic does, with one 
gigantic flap of the wings of faith to the serene heights of 
a confidence that man's moral development is the sole, su- 
preme aim of the entire system of natural things and natural 
events. To reach these heights requires a prolonged critical 
examination of the foundations and the trustworthiness of 
man's ideals — ethical, sesthetical, and religious. 

The entire substance, as it were, of the philosophy of knowl- 
edge and of the general philosophy of the Real, guarantees 
the very opposite of the Kantian position respecting mechan- 
ism and purposiveness. Without union of the two principles, 
whose union the author of the Critique of Judgment declares 
not to be " rationally comprehensible," no rational and valid 
comprehension of the products or the transactions of Nature 
is possible. The conception of mechanism cannot be held 
even in its most meagre and outline form of statement, with- 
out implying the conception of final purpose. And the most 
elaborate and comprehensive form of the mechanical theory 
— the modern scientific and all-inclusive theory of evolu- 



388 A THEORY OF REALITY 

tion — does not at all dispense with, but rather enhances and 
applies in multiform ways the ideas of teleology. 1 

By what has just been said we mean to advocate the ne- 
cessity of taking a position which goes beyond that taken by 
Lotze in the " Microcosmus." The design of this work, says 
its author, 2 is to show " how absolutely universal is the extent, 
and at the same time how completely subordinate the signif- 
icance, of the mission which mechanism has to fulfil in the 
structure of the world." In Lotze's opinion the mechanism 
which science investigates and portrays only serves as the 
means which the Idea assumes for its own realization. What 
we have attempted to show, however, is this : The principle of 
mechanism and the principle of purposiveness are, epistemologi- 
cally considered, the same essential forms of the Self "s function- 
ing in cognition ; and they are also both, ontologically considered, 
essentially the same forms of the worWs Self -like Being and 
Life. " Mechanism " means nothing less than this : a system 
of individual existences which act and react upon one another, 
according to forms, and in obedience to laws, that are neces- 
sary to the attainment of ideal ends. No such conception as 
a " mechanism of nature," or a " structure of the world," 
is tenable without the implicate of purposiveness. A critical 
metaphysics has, therefore, no need to effect a union, or 
apologetically to harmonize a seeming conflict, between these 
two principles. The two are in union, essentially one and the 
same, both as noetical and as ontological principles. Both 
affirm one and the same great truth ; man knows Reality 
only — but knows It indubitably — as a system of causally 
connected beings and transactions conforming to the ends 
set by " immanent ideas. " Ideas are essential explanatory 
principles of all that is real ; no real being exists, or actual 
transaction occurs, as cognizable or conceivable by man, 
without the causal influence of ideas. To talk of conflict here 
is foolishness ; to attempt reconciliation, there is no need. 

1 Comp. Wundt, "System der Philosophie, " p. 326 f. 

2 Introduction, near its close. 



TELEOLOGY 389 

Nothing in all the development of the Kantian philosophy 
is more interesting than are those concluding portions x of the 
Critique of Judgment in which this masterful critic discusses 
the " Methodology of the Teleological Judgment." Here the 
real Kant comes to the fore, — the man of intense and 
profound moral convictions and of deep and sincere religious 
nature. At the end of its long, reiterative discussion of the 
principles of all scientific and philosophical knowledge, criti- 
cism essays the world-wide, heaven-high, and inimitably deep 
inquiry after the " ultimate purpose of nature as a teleo- 
logical system." 2 At once the founder of the modern agnostic 
stronghold leaves the advantages of the position in which he 
has intrenched himself ; on the wings of moral faith he 
soars away beyond all the confines of time, of space, and of the 
sensuously and cognizably real. No religious fanatic ever 
exhibited more than does Kant, at this point, of that splendid 
courage with which certain minds answer the appeal to turn 
from the known actual to the realm of unknown and un- 
knowable ideals. With an authority patterned after the form 
of mathematical and physical a priori demonstrations, the 
critic assures us that man must find in himself the ultimate 
purpose of nature, and that his moral culture alone can be this 
ultimate purpose. 

The positions taken by Kant in the passage just quoted 
cannot be argued to a satisfactory conclusion on grounds of 
a general metaphysical system. They require, as has been 
said already, all of the light which can be shed upon them 
from studies in ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of 
religion ; and where Kant becomes most ready to transcend 
the limits of man's knowledge, we may well enough begin to 
temper our confidence in the conclusions of our cognitive 
powers. For neither of the three theoretical statements 
which his positions assume can be made either a matter of 

1 Marked, indeed, as an Appendix in the second edition. 

2 Part II., Appendix, § 83. 



390 A THEORY OF REALITY 

objective knowledge or a matter of incontestable moral and 
religious faith. 

It is indeed given to man to know the world of concrete 
real beings and of actual events as falling under the principle 
of final purpose. This world is known to be a teleological 
system, a construction controlled by immanent ends. But 
it is not given to man to " know " what is the one ultimate 
end of the world ; or whether the world's cause has only one 
such end ; much less, whether this one ultimate purpose of 
Nature — of the world's system and course of things and of 
selves — is the realization of man's moral ideal, as Kant con- 
ceived of it. With regard to each of these three teleological 
problems, — although they are all essential factors in the one 
problem of teleology, as this all-inclusive problem is viewed 
in the Critique of Judgment, — only the better hope or the 
more reasonable opinion is, at best, attainable. For neither 
of the three can rightly claim the dignity of a postulate of 
moral reason ; nor is either of them essentially connected 
with any so-called " ethico-teleological " proof for the Being 
of God. 

First, — and strictly speaking, — an " ultimate " purpose of 
the world's being and course, as such, may well seem some- 
thing unattainable and even inconceivable. The End to be 
attained cannot be regarded as the complete cessation of the 
process of its own attainment. The ultimate purpose of 
Nature cannot be a statical condition. The very idea of tele- 
ology is an incitement to strive on and live on ; the idea itself 
perishes in its own completed realization. To be sure, indi- 
vidual men get tired and come to consider Nirvana as the 
ultimate ideal ; or they get pessimistic, and regard the condi- 
tion, when the world shall be a burned-out coal, as some- 
thing devoutly to be wished. But the World itself is not 
tired ; and the strictly " ultimate " purpose is always beyond 
where man's hope and faith — not to say, man's knowledge — 
can go. 



TELEOLOGY 391 

Moreover, second, the most ultimate purpose which we can 
conceive is not one purpose ; it is not an ideal end that can be 
brought under any strict unity of conception. Some sort of a 
Unity, the final purpose of the World's course undoubtedly must 
be. But the higher the sort of unity is, the more complex and 
inclusive is it of every conceivable form of good ; — and of 
yet more beyond. Who shall define to knowledge, or describe 
to faith and hope the single, the alone ideal end which it shall 
seem a worthy end of all the world's Force to realize through 
the infinite Life of the world's time ? A certain singleness 
of aim is necessary for the physical and mental resources of 
finite mortals. Yet there is no real thing so mean, so limited 
in resources, so meagre in time, and so single-handed in ser- 
vice as not to have many ends to attain. The only worthy 
aim which the most exalted human intelligence can set for 
itself is to play its assigned part well everywhere in the in- 
finitely varied and ever changing system of selves and things. 
This is the true service of Self, of the World, and of God ; 
but its unity is best expressed in an indefinite variety of actual 
transactions, and of diversified forms of being. 

Nor, finally, can man attain the assurance of faith that his 
own moral culture forms the one ultimate purpose served 
by the Nature of which he is, or esteems himself to be, the 
crowning product. No word of ours shall ever depreciate or 
minimize the moral Ideal. Without its light to shed upon 
the course of physical things, down to their lowest depths 
and into their minutest details, this course is darker than it 
otherwise need be. But not even the most exalted religious 
faith which raises man to the rank of a child of God, and 
grasps, as its supreme ideal, the redemption of the race, 
justifies exactly the confidence which Kant assigns to this 
postulate of reflective teleological judgment. Indeed, the 
conception of " moral culture " may be so pressed as to divide 
human nature against itself, separate human nature from 
other nature, and even take man out of sympathy with the 



392 A THEORY OF REALITY 

well-being of God. For man is not all ethical, in the Kan- 
tian conception of " the ethical ; " neither is the ethical so 
strictly set apart from the natural as that the one can dis- 
pense with the truths of the other. Nor, finally, is God an 
unattainable Ding-an-Sich to knowledge, but a necessary pos- 
tulate of moral realities ; and yet altogether without a warm 
and vital co-conscious indwelling in his own children. 

The conclusions of our discussion of the teleological prin- 
ciple, so far as they bear in a preliminary way upon the gene- 
ral problem under investigation, may be briefly stated. They 
advance one stage further the final conclusion that the world 
of things and of selves is an Ideal Reality, constituted after 
the analogy of the self-known Self ; for it has been shown that 
the idea of final purpose is known as not belonging merely 
to the " Appearance " of the world, but as the universal and 
essential characteristic of its " Reality." This conclusion is, 
indeed, only a further extension of that knowledge of what 
all things and all selves actually are, which includes also the 
conceptions of form and of law. Knowledge, both of selves 
and of things is knowledge of their forms and of the laws 
which they obey. Equally true is it that knowledge of all 
real beings is an acquaintance with the reciprocally dependent 
functions of their elements, factors, or parts, of the adapta- 
tions they display, the adjustments they perfect, and the 
courses of mutually assisting or hindering development 
through which they pass. But this is nothing else than the 
teleological knowledge of Reality. 

Translated from the figures of speech which ordinary and 
scientific knowledge are fully justified in employing, all such 
terms as "form," "law," "function," "specific variation," 
" effects of environment," etc., testify to the same ultimate 
truth of metaphysics. The World is knoivn by man as a sys- 
tem of beings, mutually interacting in a process of becoming for 
the progressive realization of ideal ends. If, then, we represent 
the infinity of the World's Being at any moment of its exist- 



TELEOLOGY 393 

ence by the proper symbol ( oo), and its eternal Life and pro- 
cess of Becoming by a series of such symbols ( oo 1? oo 2 , oo 3 . . . 
oo n ), the coefficients attached to these symbols may then be 
arranged so as, in their relations to each other, to symbolize 
the "final purpose" of the World. Its one ultimate final 
purpose, if such there be, remains the insoluble problem indi- 
cated by the coefficient of an irreducible X. 

If, however, by increasing our knowledge of the relations 
of the coefficients in the World's course, so far as that 
course can become known to us, we arrive at a reasonable 
conjecture as to the meaning and value of this X, we are 
entitled to add also this conjectured meaning and value to 
our metaphysical system. Such a value to the X is afforded 
by the hope and the faith attained through the thoughtful 
study of the philosophy of the Ideal in the forms of conduct, 
art, and religion. Thus our Theory of Reality embraces the 
Ideas which the Will of the Absolute is setting into the 
World's actual historical development. That this Will is 
guided by ideas of ends to be gained in every form, law, 
and relation that are served by the objects of man's experi- 
ence is a truth belonging to all man's objective knowledge of 
the World. This World is, fundamentally considered, known 
to man as a Will guided by immanent ideas ; and among 
these guiding ideas are the ideal ends, already actually 
secured, and to be secured, by the action of this Will. 



CHAPTER XV 

SPHERES OF REALITY 

The detailed critical analysis which is necessary to found 
upon the cognitive experience of men a defensible Theory of 
Reality has been substantially finished. In the attempt to 
frame such a theory we began under the impulse of that 
craving to which Matthew Arnold so aptly referred : " We 
want first to know what Being is." This is a want, however, 
which can never be satisfied either wholly without, or solely 
with, regard to what all men know by the senses and by self- 
consciousness, or to what a few favored individuals know by 
aid of the advances of the particular sciences. Metaphysics, 
on the one hand, in order to have truths about realities at the 
bases of its structure, must build on the facts and formulas 
of our common experience. But, on the other hand, in order 
to apprehend aright and to fulfil its mission, metaphysics, 
after subjecting its varied materials to critical inspection, 
must carry its structure upward toward that one Truth of 
Reality which unites all these subordinate truths in itself. 
Thus the perfection of metaphysical system requires that 
speculative and reflective synthesis should follow critical 
analysis. 

In accordance with our conception of correct method, reflec- 
tive analysis has been employed in the effort to show what, 
as to the actual nature of particular beings, is implied in the 
very terms under which they are always, and necessarily, 
known by man. It is indispensable here only briefly to sum- 
marize the results of this detailed analysis. Every individual, 



SPHERES OF REALITY 395 

concrete reality (whether a so-called Self or a so-called Thing) 
has been seen to unite in its being, as a necessary precon- 
dition of its really being at all, every one of the categories. 
Concrete realities are particular combinations of the cate- 
gories. Thus, " being in reality " is never a simple and easily 
intelligible affair ; the rather is it always an affair which 
requires, for its simplest apprehension, all the faculties of 
the developed mind, and which, for its perfect comprehension, 
far surpasses the limits of the most expanded mental devel- 
opment. But our experience is no warrant for the agnostic 
conclusion, that man knows not what it is really to be ; it is 
rather token of the inexhaustible wealth of the content of 
Reality. It is also a sign that the completed, or perfected, 
knowledge of any concrete reality would seem to involve the 
essential significance of all that is real. 

The moment, however, an attempt is made to translate 
into their ultimate significance those terms which man is 
compelled to employ in the description of what he knows real 
things to be, the virtual character of all human knowledge 
becomes obvious. The knower has somehow attributed to 
things, regarded as trans-subjective and independent of his 
knowledge, those qualifications which he knows himself to 
have and to exercise in his more immediate and mutually 
dependent relations with things. That is to say, all man's 
knowledge of what things really and, as it were, " in-them- 
selves " are, is gained on the basis of his right to judge that 
the real being of things is essentially similar to his own. 

Our previous analysis of the categories has verified the 
foregoing postulate in all its essential particulars. In know- 
ing himself as really being, and actually doing, man comes to 
know the reality of the being and the actuality of the trans- 
actions of things. He, the knower, is conscious of self- 
activity, which is inhibited by a " that-which," not to be 
identified with the Self. This "other," this "non-self" is 
accordingly known as self-active, and yet as always inhibited 



396 A THEORY OF REALITY 

by beings that cannot be identified with itself. Man is also 
conscious of actively relating himself, and of becoming pas- 
sively related, either without or in spite of his will, to all 
other things. These other things, too, are known as being in 
real relations after the analogy of the observing, judging, and 
thinking Self. Man is conscious of force as followed by 
changes in himself and in other beings, in conformity with 
ideal ends. These other beings, too, are therefore known as 
employing their forces, within themselves and upon one 
another, so as to change themselves and to induce in one 
another changes that conform to established types, or laws, 
or functions, or mutual services, — that is, to ideal ends. 
Man measures and enumerates the different ideally separable 
" moments " in the one stream of his consciousness ; he thus 
knows his object-things as actually having quantity and 
number belonging to them. He then employs them to judge 
and to estimate one another. He is conscious of the flow of 
his own life in the so-called stream of time ; but this flow is 
objectively determined ; and he, therefore, knows the life of 
things as occuring and lasting in the same stream of time. 
And although the essential character of that space in which 
all thing-like beings have their existence and their changes 
seems, of all the foreign conditions of things, most foreign 
to man's own self-hood, this character also proves, after all, 
the same important truth. For the knower knows himself as 
entering into actual relations with other beings — even with 
other selves — only under the formal conditions of space. 

When, therefore, a critical analysis has laid bare the signi- 
ficance of the categories, for all men's knowledge of reality, we 
see that things are not essentially foreign to the self. For 
we see that they join with the self in furnishing the manifold 
principles of differentiation which are needed for the mani- 
festation of the Idea in a system of inter-related selves and 
things. And the deepest significance of this common use of 
the categories, in their joint application to selves and to things, 



SPHERES OF REALITY 397 

becomes apparent only when the truth is recognized, that the 
one fundamental distinction which the act of knowledge must 
maintain is the distinction between the knower and his 
"other" — the object known. 

It is, then, in a profound and comprehensive conception of 
Selfhood, its nature and its validity, that metaphysical system 
must find the means for a synthesis which shall be faithful to 
all the facts and truths of its critical analysis. This is a 
conclusion which has been gradually gathering and strength- 
ening in our minds during the long course of previous epis- 
temological and ontological discussion. Especially insistent 
has this conclusion seemed during the later stages of the 
discussion. For these have made it apparent that all the 
attributions of form and law, and final purpose, which both 
the ordinary and the scientific knowledge of man finds it 
necessary to ascribe to things, are essentially ideal. They are 
ways of the self-recognized behavior of man in all his action 
and development, amidst the environment of natural objects. 
They are necessarily attributed to these objects, and to Nature 
at large, as defining the character of the reality in which she 
includes them all. But this means that all natural objects 
are known to man only in terms of his own selfhood ; 
and that Nature is known as Will which is progressively 
realizing its own immanent ideas. To change the phrase, 
without intending at this point to change the doctrine : The 
World of beings, both selves and things, is known as having 
its essential reality in being an " Absolute Self." 

The phrase just employed — " Absolute Self " — has already 
several times been referred to, in the analytical criti- 
cism of the categories. The conception answering to the 
phrase has, indeed, thus far been left in a vague and unsatis- 
factory form. The moment one proposes to subject it to the 
tests of reflective criticism, one is made aware of an attempt 
to cross what not a few will consider to be the limits of hu- 
man knowledge and even of legitimate speculative endeavor. 



398 A THEORY OF REALITY 

In our judgment, too, it is not permissible, and it is, as a rule? 
the opposite of truly serviceable, to claim such a degree of 
objective certainty for this conception as to identify it with the 
sum-total of all Reality. That I immediately know the entire 
system of all known and conceivable beings in terms of an 
" Absolute Self " is not a conclusion which follows in a strictly 
logical way from what has been accomplished by the pre- 
vious analysis. Yet some such synthesis as this may be made 
valid by this analysis; and the synthesis may be so con- 
nected with the analysis as to afford a Theory of Reality that 
shall repose on foundations firmly laid in the sum-total of 
man's cognitive experience. 

To further the interests of successful speculation, two 
lines of effort need to be followed in the interests of improv- 
ing the conception just introduced. The first of these is the 
effort to perfect the conception itself. Its content needs to 
be made more clear and self-consistent, and its value must be 
raised to higher potencies and grander measures of extension. 
For the question whether the noun and the adjective here 
joined together do not refuse all vital union — whether to 
speak of an " Absolute Self " be not a contradiction in terms 
— is not altogether a vain question. Especially is it neces- 
sary if the conception of selfhood is to be extended so as 
to cover all the objects of man's knowledge, in their mutual 
relations and in their extension over all times and spaces, 
that this conception shall itself be worthily conceived. 

But, second, it must be our effort to place this conception 
of an Absolute Self, as summing up all man can know, or 
think, that is highest and best about the essential Being of 
the world-system, in satisfactory theoretical and practical 
relations with the facts it is intended to explain. The parti- 
cular selves and particular things man knows — imperfectly, 
to be sure, but with a continuous increase in the depth, 
breadth, and certainty of cognition — belong together in the 
great system of which they are all members or parts. We 



SPHERES OE REALITY 399 

hare found ourselves constantly approximating the concep- 
tion of an Absolute Self, as the endeavor has gone on to 
understand the ultimate significance of all these particular 
cognitions, and the ultimate nature of that reality to the unity 
of whose being the particulars belong. But such progress 
only leads the mind nearer to that philosophical problem 
which, says Lotze, 1 -'we may therefore consider as the final 
problem of Ontology — a problem not yet satisfactorily solved 

— this inquiry after the connection between the necessary 
Unity and the alike necessary manifoldness of the Existent." 
Or, as it seems to us better to express the problem: TThat 
are the relations in reality between all the particular beings, 
which are known under the formal conditions of space and 
time, and that Absolute Self whose Being must be so con- 
ceived of as to offer the explanatory principle of all that they 
are, and do ? In the attempt to solve this problem, different 
thinkers lay emphasis on ideas of " identity," or " manifesta- 
tion," or •• realization," or "evolution," or ,; creation/" etc. 

To frame a consistent and worthy conception which shall 
synthesize alhthe legitimate conclusions of metaphysical analy- 
sis, undoubtedly requires assistance from reflective thinking 
upon human ideals. The highest and worthiest selfhood 
with vrhich man has acquaintance is the Self that is self-active 
in pursuit of the ideals of knowledge, of conduct, of art. and of 
religion. This is our real being, as known to us to be a spirit- 
ual life. Here, in the actual experience of the self, the 
•• most real reality M — if such an expression may be pardoned 

— and the highest ideality are united. Therefore the work 
of philosophy in perfecting the conception of an Absolute 
Self, if this work be possible at all. certainly cannot be 
accomplished without ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy 
of religion. But since these branches of philosophy deal 
rather with man's ideals than with the concrete actualities 
known to man. — with actual selves and actual things. — 

1 In his " Outlines of Encyclopaedia of Philosophy." close of § 14. 



400 A THEORY OF REALITY 

they require and permit larger influxes of the emotional and 
practical life into their conclusions. It is customary to speak 
of their invisible and intangible entities as objects of faith, 
while the invisible and intangible entities of physics, chemis- 
try, and biology are called objects of science, of assured and 
verifiable knowledge. 

It is not the intention of the present investigation to dispute 
or invalidate some such distinction as that to which reference 
has just been made. But if the distinction is taken so as to 
create a schism between faith and knowledge, between the 
entities that are ideals and the entities that have been shown 
to implicate the immanence of ideas, between the philosophy of 
man's ethical, aesthetical, and religious nature, and the philoso- 
phy of his scientific and cognitive nature, then all our previous 
investigation offers a network of insuperable objections. For 
the foundations of a system of metaphysics reach down to the 
ultimate and universal facts of man's cognitive experience ; and 
in examining these facts we are made to know that man is an 
ideal and spiritual being, and that this ideal and spiritual 
being essentially modifies his knowledge of every form and 
semblance of reality. As a Spirit, or Mind, man knows the 
reality of himself and of all other beings. 

It remains, then, to carry the structure already begun up 
to the place where the more definitive forms of human ideals — 
ideals of the ethical, artistic, and religious Self — can employ 
these foundations for their peculiar work of extending the 
superstructure. For the completed work of metaphysical 
synthesis, it was necessary first to consider what is the known 
nature of a self, as this being actually exists and knows itself 
to be, and to be related to its environment of things. If all 
existences have a self-like nature, whether as known under 
the forms of the most ordinary or of the most strictly scientific 
cognition, then the more profound and well certified our 
knowledge of the self becomes, the more shall we know of the 
true and ultimate nature of all reality. 



SPHERES OF REALITY 401 

But the unity which this conception imparts to all the 
objects of knowlege must not be conceived of in a way that is 
incompatible with the real variety of these objects. All things 
and all selves are known as somehow related — manifestation, 
emanation, revelation, dependent creation — to an Absolute 
Self. All things are known only so far as they are conceived 
of, or envisaged, in terms of the selfhood of man. Yet selves 
and things must not be identified, either in general or in par- 
ticular ; neither must the individual existences lose their 
reality by being theoretically merged in the Unity of the 
World, of which they are a part. In order, then, to reap the 
legitimate fruits of analysis, and not the rather to destroy or 
surrender them all, by the act of synthesis, the reality of 
spheres of being must be maintained. I am ; you are ; things 
are ; and the Absolute, that somehow embraces me, and you, 
and all things in his Being, is. To all, the conception of self- 
hood somehow applies. It is the grasping on to more or less 
of selfhood which relegates each particular being to its 
appropriate sphere of reality. It is the absoluteness of the 
Divine Selfhood, which makes its Unity of Reality include the 
particular realities of all finite things and finite selves. The 
different spheres of reality as known by man are distinguished 
by the amounts of essential selfhood which they possess. 

The line of argument leading to the supreme synthesis of 
metaphysics, the philosophy of the real, may therefore be 
briefly described as follows. In the individual man, and in the 
human race, the growth of the most immediate and assured 
knowledge reveals what it is really to be, after the type of the 
self-conscious knower and doer, in all the varying relations of 
his changing existence toward his objects — whether other 
selves or things. Reality is envisaged as a commerce between 
the self and the not-self, in which the former knows that it is 
and what it is, and knows that the latter is, and is not itself. 
But what the not-self really is, becomes known only as it is 
apprehended after the analogy of the self. All other men are 

26 



402 A THEORY OF REALITY 

known to me as not-my-self , but as self -like things — com- 
pletely self-like, so far as all the important characteristics of 
the actual being of a self are concerned. Still other things — 
animals and plants, for example — are known as less com- 
pletely self-like ; yet they, too, so far as known at all, are 
known only as their existence is apprehended, or conceived 
of, after the analogy of the self. And in the last analysis, 
the same procedure turns out to be verifiable in the case of 
those things that are most unlike the willing, feeling, thinking 
Self. Mere things, " brute inanimate matter " — whatever 
one may call those forms of existence which give less sure 
token of being, in reality, of the same kinship with ourselves 

— are known only on essentially similar terms. They are 
indeed the least obviously and fully self-like of all known 
forms of existence. But they, too, so far as known, or even 
as at all conceivable, are somewhat self -like things. All the 
qualifications they are known to show, or are conjectured to 
possess, appear in reality, essentially the same as certain 
fundamental qualifications of the knowing and willing self. 

No matter how much physical science may strive to regard 
physical beings and events merely as " in-themselves " existing, 
all the terms it employs still recognize the same metaphysical 
truth. Of this truth there are both a negative and a positive 
side. The former recognizes the fact that we do not know 
some of our own forms of being and behavior to belong, in 
reality, to things ; but the latter assures us that all the forms 
of being, and behavior which we do know things to possess are 
essentially the same as our own. The former and negative 
position is largely taken in our ignorance. Man — so to say 

— cannot get into interior relations with things ; he cannot 
hold with them the same satisfying and informing intercourse 
which is possible between selves. We may even speak, with 
that sweet saint of the Middle Ages, of our " dear brethren, 
the birds." But the kinship of being which is between souls 
and stars or stones does not, on the surface at least, warrant 



SPHERES OF REALITY 403 

our going so far as to address them in fraternal terms. Yet 
the more profound acquaintance which reflection upon the 
nature of knowledge and the nature of existence brings, makes 
even more emphatic the positive and informing side of man's 
cognitive experience with the system of physical beings and 
physical events. They really are for man, only so far as they 
show to him the evident tokens of the will and the mind that 
is in them. It is their actual construction after the pattern 
of his own self-hood, their substantiality as centres of an 
activity that functions in obedience to immanent ideas, which 
makes them knowable, or conceivable, by the human mind. 

Combining these two aspects of the same truth — the nega- 
tive and the positive, the view ah ignorantia and the view 
which embraces all that is called scientia — we arrive at a 
knowledge of the completed whole. Things are known as 
imperfect and inferior selves. They have a smaller share in 
reality than man possesses. Among the ranks, or spheres, of 
Being, they lie lower down, as it were. This relative imper- 
fection and inferiority to us must be determined by the 
relations in which they and we stand to the Absolute Self. 

From the epistemological point of view, this doctrine of 
things amounts to saying that no objects of man's cognitive 
experience can be envisaged, or conceived of, in independence 
of the active and ideal nature of man himself. From the onto- 
logical point of view, the very same result takes the form of a 
declaration that all beings in reality have an active and ideal 
nature analogous to that possessed by man. But this nature 
they possess, and reveal, in different degrees of certainty and 
of fullness. First of all, every Self knows with the highest 
degree of certainty and fullness what his own real being is. 
Second, and as essentially interwoven with this knowledge, 
every Self knows what is the actual being of those things that 
behave most like himself. They are other selves — his 
' 4 fellows " — belonging to the species, man. Third, all living 
beings are known as sharing with the Self some of the more 



404 A THEORY OF REALITY 

important characteristics of that actual life which the Self 
knows as its own. And, fourth, there are those non-living 
things, about whose reality — that they are — we often think 
ourselves most assuredly convinced ; but about the actual 
nature, the trans-subjective characteristics of which — what 
they are — we are most in doubt, and find all our conceptions 
even the most scientific, very obscure. It is the nature of 
things, and not the nature of ourselves, which offers the most 
obscure depths and the more fathomless abysses of mystery. 
Within each of these four classes of the objects of man's 
cognitive experience, there is an almost indefinite gradation 
of knowledge, both as respects its clearness and its fullness. 
And between any two adjoining classes the lines cannot at all 
times be strictly drawn. Different individuals and different 
races of man have self-knowledge with greater and less 
degrees of approach to clearness and fullness. The race is 
advancing, as the history of speculation and of institutions 
— social, political, ethical and religious — sufficiently shows, 
in all the knowledge that answers to the very word " Self." 
This growing knowledge of man's own historical growth, and 
the facts and principles of comparative psychology, is giving 
to each student of the subject a less obscure and more broad 
doctrine of the nature of man. Some portions of the human 
race there are, whose real nature is as yet scarcely so well 
known to modern science, as is the nature of many of the 
lower animals. And biology is constantly revealing new 
wonders and unsolved problems as to the actual, the matter- 
of-fact nature of the lower animals and of the plant-life with 
which the destiny and behavior of the animals are so closely 
related. Meanwhile physics and chemistry are showing how 
profoundly mysterious is this so-called " brute and inanimate 
matter." What a picture do these sciences present ! Not 
" brute " or " inanimate " ; it is rather one seething sea of mov- 
ing, interacting molecules and atoms — orderly, terrible, vin- 
dictive yet benevolent, resistless energy and divine Force, in 



SPHERES OF REALITY 405 

which, as a universal environment, all selves and all things 
" live and move and have their being." 

All selves and all things are, however, known as constitut- 
ing some sort of a Unity, and as moving together toward some 
far-off goal. Their processes of becoming do not take place 
without principles that compel a certain oneness as well as 
multiplicity. Their changes are in one space and one time. 
Their energies are capable of correlation under the conception 
of one force ; but this is not as though they were forms of a 
single blind impulsion that knows not how to differentiate 
itself, to combine and to separate, for the attainment of ideal 
ends. Individual realities are all ideal unities ; and yet they 
belong together in the one World. What sort of a real Being 
of the world can serve as the correlate of such a well-founded 
conception of oneness as this ? An ontological doctrine or 
theory must answer this inquiry. We cannot refer this unity 
to the merely subjective, unifying activity of the mind of the 
knower. The rather is it a unity which his knowledge compels 
him to recognize as belonging to the actuality of the system 
of interacting selves and things. We can provide no other 
semblance of a satisfactory answer to this problem, which the 
supreme synthesis of philosophy undertakes, than the answer 
already suggested. This unitary Being of the World can be 
secured and accounted for, only if all particular beings are 
known as having their Ground in an Absolute Self. 

In justification of such a metaphysical synthesis as this it 
now becomes necessary briefly to describe the content of the 
conception we have employed, and to show that this conception 
may be made valid for the work which the study of reality re- 
quires of it. First : Can this conception of an Absolute Self be 
made clear and self-consistent ? And, second, can it then meet 
the demands made upon it for service in the realms of Matter 
and Mind, Spirit and Nature, the Real and the Ideal. To 
answer these inquiries, so far as general metaphysics can 
without definitely entering upon the discussion of problems of 



406 A THEORY OF REALITY 

ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion, will occupy 
us in the concluding chapters of this book. 

What right has the searcher for a system of metaphysics so 
to enlarge and elevate the conception of Self as to prepare it 
for union with a conception like that fitly answering to the 
word " absolute " ? The answer to this inquiry can be the 
more summarily given here, because it has elsewhere been 
made the subject of detailed analysis and reflection. 1 

Study of the history of conceptions answering to the word 
" Self," or to similar terms, shows them to have been the sub- 
ject of a most significant development, both in the individual 
and in the race. This development, like every other which is 
significant, has not served to simplify and reduce to the low 
level of a perfectly comprehensible truth, either the concep- 
tions or the reality which is the correlate of the conceptions. 
The rather has progress taken the direction of enriching the 
content of human thought, while clearing it of certain inter- 
nal contradictions and elevating it toward its ideal, and ideally 
most valuable form. If, then, these conceptions are consid- 
ered from the anthropologist's point of view, many diverse and 
curious opinions are brought to light, as to what the known 
characteristics of selfhood actually are. The personification 
of things and the materialization of persons are found to re- 
sult from tendencies most curiously interdependent and mutu- 
ally involved. All the abnormal conceits and hallucinations 
of the hypnotic and the insane with regard to themselves have 
their parallels in views and practices which have been recog- 
nized as sane and normal at some stage in the evolution of 
the race. To write the history of these conceptions in a man- 
ner at once accurate and philosophically critical, would be to 
trace the moral, social, and speculative progress of mankind. 2 

1 See the author's " Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory," chap. xxii. : 
"The Knowledge of Things and the Knowledge of Self;" "Philosophy of 
Knowledge," chap. vii. : " Knowledge of Things and of Self ; " and the entire 
volume, " Philosophy of Mind." 

2 Comp. the masterly summary of Volkmann, " Lehrbuch der Psychologie," 



SPHERES OF REALITY 407 

If the architectonic of these conceptions be regarded from the 
psychologist's point of view, one may distinguish the " Material 
Self," "the Social Self," and the " Spiritual Self; " and one 
may find all these, and other modifications of the results of 
reflective thinking, ambiguous and confused, in themselves 
and in their relations to one another. 1 By carrying the analy- 
sis forward in a destructive rather than a constructive fash- 
ion, it is even possible to show that no one of the several 
forms of the self's appearance can be identified with its 
reality ; therefore, it is not a " true form " of experience, and 
" does not give us the facts as they are in reality," but is a 
" mere appearance," a " mere bundle of discrepancies." 2 
But to leave in confusion the testimony of the historical de- 
velopment of man's conception of his own selfhood ; or simply 
to pass judgment upon that ambiguity in its use into which all 
men necessarily fall ; and, especially, to convict the concep- 
tion of such internal contradictions as render all its witness 
to any form of truth absolutely valueless ; — all these are, 
in our judgment, either inadequate or misleading ways of 
handling one of the most important problems of philosophy. 
Two truths, which are established by the historical study, 
the psychological analysis, and the metaphysical criticism of 
the conception of Self, need recognition and enforcement at 
this point. First : the physical, or " thing-like," manifesta- 
tion of the self is essential to its existence in any kind of re- 
lations with other beings, under the formal conditions of 
space and time. But, second, this very manifestation is itself 
of such a character as to lead us to the conclusion that the 
truest and most essential Self is that nature which is envis- 
aged as its own Life in every act of self-consciousness. In 
the concrete, when thus conceived and stated, one side of the 

3 te AufL, I., pp. 54-216 ; and compare Eucken, " Grandbegriffe der Gegenwart; " 
and a monograph on " The Development of the Doctrine of Personality in 
Modern Philosophy," by Wm. H. Walker. 

1 See James, " The Principles of Psychology," I., chap. x. 

2 Comp. the conclusions of Mr. Bradley, " Appearance and Reality," chap, x 



408 A THEORY OF REALITY 

truth of man's experience is this : I know myself as related, 
under the conditions of space and time, to other things only 
as I take up into my selfhood the same physical and external 
forms of existence which all these other things manifest to 
me. But I have also another side to my self-conscious expe- 
rience ; and this shows me that I am a self-active knower and 
producer of a continuity of conscious states. These conscious 
states, taken together, have an ideal value, ideal ends of their 
own, and a significant connection with one another. It is this 
cognitive and voluntary realization of ideal ends which reveals 
to me my inmost being. Speaking popularly, both sides 
might be said to unite in validating the familiar declaration : 
I am an embodied spirit, — and so constituted a complete 
Self in a system of selves and things. 

Translated into the general propositions of systematic meta- 
physics, the same conclusion may be stated as follows : Mat- 
ter, or the generalized conception of things is a manifestation 
of Spirit, — the realization of the inmost Being of the World, 
under the formal conditions of space and time. Thus the 
true and essential nature of the material world is only known 
by means of our self-conscious recognition of our own spirits 
— as the inner and higher principle of cognitive experience. 
The essential and real nature of matter, in the full signifi- 
cance of the word u Reality," is to be known only in terms 
of the Life of Spirit. 

Carried out into the large, and applied to the attempt of 
philosophy at a supreme synthesis, these two sides of man's 
experience with himself, and with things, unite in the following 
conception. That system of interrelated beings, which con- 
stitutes the world as known to man, is the " manifestation," 
under the formal conditions of space and time, of an infinite 
and eternal Spirit. How the formal conditions of space and 
time are applicable to the reality of this Spirit has already 
been sufficiently explained. The justification and interpreta- 
tion of the word which has just been chosen (or, indeed, of 



SPHERES OF REALITY 409 

any other words which might be chosen in its place) to indi- 
cate the relations between the whole world of man's actual 
experience and its own inmost and true Being, require further 
reflection. But for the present we may let the term " mani- 
festation " suggest what further reflective thinking must try 
to define. What is meant by Spirit, however, is, in its essen- 
tial characteristics, already perfectly clear. A Spirit is a Will 
self-active in the realization of ideal ends. Spirituality is, 
then, for us, as individual and finite selves, and for the exis- 
tences which constitute the unity which we know the world 
of selves and of things to be, the innermost essence of all 
Reality. 

The truth as respects the individual self is illustrated in 
the development of every man, and in the entire development 
of the human race. With the child and with childish men, 
by the " person " is understood the sensitive, the feeling, 
thinking, and active body. Such parts of this body as are 
the more obvious objects of sense-perception or of sen- 
suous imagination may be, by turns, and in accordance with 
theoretical or practical ends, identified either with external 
things, or with the real self. They are the factors, as it were, 
which serve to bridge over the stream of consciousness between 
the wholly external world, the things that are essentially not- 
self and yet are liable at any moment to become necessary 
parts of the manifested self, and those inmost experiences 
which cannot be separated from the idea of any conscious 
existence whatever. Thus even the crudest conception of 
the Self, as related to a system of not-selves, contains the 
beginnings of that process which eventuates in the doctrine 
that mind and matter are separated by " the whole diameter 
of being." 

The growth of the scientific knowledge of human nature 
serves a double purpose in the direction already indicated. 
The more we know of ourselves, of man, the more clear in 
character and detailed in particulars does the conception of 



410 A THEORY OF REALITY 

his physical organism become. This organism is found to be, 
in its component parts, precisely identical with other things ; 
from this point of view, it is only one thing among countless 
others, built up, moment after moment by the constructive 
energy of the restless atoms. As respects its form, its laws, 
the causal connections which bind its beginnings, its changes, 
and its ceasing from existence, in with the great World- 
Course, the human body belongs to the realm of the physical. 
The knowledge of it is given in physics, chemistry, biology, — 
the science of things. But the growth of our scientific 
knowledge of human nature takes also another direction. 
This is the direction of deepening, elevating, and enriching 
the content of the conception of a finite, personal Spirit. 

Suppose, then, an answer is required from the most ad- 
vanced conclusions of the physical and the psychological 
sciences to the question : What is the reality of the human 
Self — as involving both body and spirit ? The answer, when 
these sciences have told all that they know or can know, has 
divided the reality into two parts, so as to give one part over 
entirely to the world of things, and leave the other part self- 
conscious although incapable of communication with or of 
playing a part in this world of things. For the body is 
known to these sciences only as a system of physical elements 
which, coming from the great stream of material nature, 
under exceedingly complex and obscure influences from inter- 
nal atomic forces and as modified by the action of their 
environment, attain temporarily a certain morphological and 
physiological unity ; and which go through a peculiar course 
of development. By Spirit, however, we are left to under- 
stand the Subject of a conscious and ideal development which, 
by its own activity as knower and doer, makes itself a real and 
unitary being, with non-physical modes of its self-realization. 
Thus the innermost, the supreme, and the essential reality of 
the Self — its "in itself being," if so uncouth a phrase may 
still be pardoned — is the spiritual reality it knows itself to 



SPHERES OF REALITY 411 

be in the voluntary and self-conscious pursuit of its own ideals. 
Its highest real unity is also attained in the same way, — 
namely by a conscious and voluntary unifying of the life of 
consciousness in its direction toward selected ends. 

But our doctrine of the reality of the human self, as both 
body and spirit, when left in this, its completed scientific 
form, lacks the theoretical and the practical unity which it 
requires in order to meet the demands, both of philosophy 
and of the life of moral conduct, artistic endeavor, and re- 
ligious faith. How impotent to effect this required unity, is 
any conception logically covered under the term " parallel- 
ism," we have shown in other connections, over and over 
again. Mere parallelism explains nothing ; nor can such a 
relation eventuate in or even express any actual connection 
between the events which run parallel, whether in space or in 
time. Only real beings^ whose forces have regard to each other 
in accordance with some system of ideas common to them all can 
effect any hind of actual unity. But if it be denied that the 
Self, as both body and spirit is, in reality ', any kind of a unity, 
then each stream of human consciousness is so isolated from 
the Being of the World — from all other selves and all things 
— that, as a will, it can effect nothing in this world, and as 
feeling and thinking, it can nohow mentally represent the 
truth of this world. 

It is absolutely necessary, then, for metaphysics to recog- 
nize the fundamental truth that man's selfhood, as body and 
spirit, has its total being in dependence upon that same Unity 
of Reality to which all other beings belong. This Reality 
makes us to be the unity we are. It furnishes the vital 
cement so to speak, the interlacing network of connections 
which temporarily bind the body and spirit into one self, and 
also unite this one self with the other beings of the one 
World. The most immediate and indubitable experience 
which the mind has of any causal relation is that of the 
peculiar relation which exists between the spirit and the body 



412 A THEORY OF REALITY 

of the individual man, in their correlated actions. Through 
the organism — and so far as thoroughly well certified exper- 
ience now goes, through it alone — the innermost and essen- 
tial self is wrought upon by the forces of the external world. 
Through the same organism — and so far as thoroughly well- 
certified experience now goes, through it alone — the inner- 
most and essential self manifests its being, and gets its will 
and ideas realized by the forces of the external world. The 
body, which is, from the scientific point of view, but a tem- 
porary cross-section, as it were, in the current of the world's 
physical and non-self-like beings, conditions and influences 
the stream of cognitive and voluntary states of conscious- 
ness. The stream of conscious states, which, in the highest 
and most ideal stages of its flow, shows to itself the real 
nature of the spirit, conditions and influences so much of 
physical nature as it can reach in, and through the body. 
Thus the self knows itself as a part of physical nature, linked 
in as a thing with all other things; but thus, also, the self 
knows itself as a spirit, rising ideally above and dominating 
over physical nature. 

The metaphysics of Selfhood, then, can neither consider 
man's body as the producer and effective cause of man's 
spirit, nor consider his spirit as the framer and builder of his 
body. Nor can it leave the two merely to run parallel, in 
reality disconnected, side by side. On the one hand, the 
total human Self perceives itself as a thing-like existence ; 
on the other hand, it envisages itself, as a cognitive and feel- 
ing Will, a non-thing-like and spiritual existence. Without 
the one kind of experience, it could have no real being capable 
of entering into actual relations of living commerce — giving 
and taking, putting forth and receiving — with other beings 
in that system of selves and things which constitutes the 
known world. Without the other kind of experience the self 
would be a mere thing; or, rather, without participation in 
the nature of spirit, neither self-conscious recognition, nor 



SPHERES OF REALITY 413 

intercourse between selves, is conceivable. The one all- 
inclusive Being of the World, the Unity of Reality, is respon- 
sible for the union of body and spirit in each human Self, and 
of each Self with other selves, and of all selves with all 
things. 

If now, however, the language which it has been found 
necessary to employ in all our explanation of the reality of 
the Self, as dependent for its being and its manifestation upon 
the Being of the World, is translated over into the thoughts 
already provided for it, we are led again to the conception of 
an Absolute Self. For every characteristic of this Being of the 
World, in which all concrete beings " live and move and have 
their being," is constructed after the analogy of the Spirit's 
cognitive and self-active life, in the pursuit of ideal ends. 
This is what the previous extended analysis has shown in 
detail. To have the unitary being, which knows itself as a 
will that is active in the realization of ideal ends, — in a word, 
to have true interior selfhood, — this is what we know our 
own most significant and real existence to be. This is the 
highest and supremely ideal unity of what we call " Spirit," 
or " Mind." 

Regarded as providing for a unity of force, the real princi- 
ple, which accounts for the world as known by man, must be 
conceived of as one Will. Regarded as the ground of all the 
relations which are recognized as actuallv existing; at anv 
moment in the world's history, this same principle must have 
" self-consistency." It must provide for that adjustment of 
innumerable factors to each other, in accordance with the 
demands made upon each by every other, which is realized in 
the highest degree by a well-ordered self. Regarded as 
adequate to that formal unification which characterizes all 
man's experience of things, as external and extended, as 
" occupying space " of measurable quantity and so divisible into 
many beings existing side by side in the unity of the one 
world, this real principle must be a Will that differentiates 



414 A THEORY OF REALITY 

and distributes itself over a variety of individuals and yet 
binds them together into ideal forms. It must account for the 
One and the many ; it must accomplish the reality of particu- 
lar beings in the unity of a single system. As the explana- 
tion of the entire world's course, and as setting the goal to 
that process of development of which It is itself the never- 
failing Source and innermost Life, this principle must give 
forms and laws to an ontological process of becoming. But the 
very conception of such a Principle of becoming is realizable 
only in the nature of a Spirit which can set into reality, as a 
process in time, its own ideals. 

The only true and highest Unity conceivable by man is that 
possessed, in reality, by the Life of a Spirit. Or, in other 
words, it is the unceasing, inner activity of the Self, which by 
self-consciousness, recognitive memory, and rational thinking 
unifies the different " momenta " of experience, that consti- 
tutes the essence of its own unitary being. As we have else- 
where said : " that, and nothing else is the essence of the uni- 
tary being of mind. With such unity a great variety of so- 
called faculties is in no way inconsistent. The rather is the 
unitary being of the mind dependent upon the exercise in the 
fullest way, of all the faculties ; for they are all implied in 
eYGvy act of self-consciousness ; the completer their activity, 
the more truly one is this mind." 

That which is known to be true of the most real of all 
unities sets the conditions under which we must conceive of 
the Unity that in some sort, the totality of things is known to 
possess. It is the oneness of the Spirit which is in them which 
gives to things their ontological Unity. Without this concep- 
tion of them, the seeming unitary Being of the World is mere 
seeming ; it is only the temporary resultant of subjective con- 
ditions and of the unifying mental activity of the observer's 
mind. Without this conception, the World is, in no sense 
whatever, a Unity of Reality. It does not even possess so 
much of actual oneness as belongs to the stream of the indivi- 



SPHERES OF REALITY 415 

dual's consciousness ; and this regarded as mere stream is only 
succession of states, which slips away unceasingly. It never is ; 
it is always becoming. Therefore, the Unity of the entire world's 
being and course, unless it has reality in the Life of some self- 
conscious Spirit, consists only of countless millions of separate 
streams, that never unite in one stream, but keep slipping away 
unceasingly, in diverse and indeterminate directions. 

If, however, we try to take the crudely realistic point of view, 
then the Unity of Reality becomes nothing but bare totality of 
countless millions of things — " crude lumpishness " of exist- 
ences that are void of so much of actual unification as belongs 
to a heap of grains of sand. Here, again, the instant any 
attempt is made to give intelligible terms to that unity which 
our experience compels us to ascribe to things, the familiar 
talk begins of specific " forms," of " obedience to laws," of 
" conformity to ends," of " actions " and " interactions " 
resulting in ideal results, of a course of " development " reach- 
ing onward toward some far-off goal. But all these are terms 
which have meaning only for a Spirit, conceived of as a Will 
energizing so as to set into reality its own ideas. In brief, to 
ascribe any Unity in Reality to the multitude of concrete beings 
and transactions of the world as known to man, is to affirm 
that this world is the manifestation of a Spirit's unitary Life. 

For the fuller interpretation of all such words as are 
designed to indicate the relations existing between the Being 
we have called an " Absolute Self " and all finite selves and 
things, we must ask the patience needed for a brief waiting. At 
the present moment we wish briefly to state the conclusion at 
which it was desired to arrive by the discussions of this chapter. 

1. As regards the nature of Reality, the sphere of man's 
assured and defensible knowledge is, both for the individual 
and for the race, one of enlarging extension. This is true, 
whether the particular kind of reality sought, be that of one's 
self, — body and mind, — or of other selves, or of material 
things. What sort of a being the human spirit really and 



416 A THEORY OF REALITY 

essentially is, will constantly become a subject of clearer and 
better certified knowledge ; man knows himself as spirit, with 
an increasing wealth of content and assurance of conviction. 
Modern science is throwing floods of new light upon biological 
problems, hitherto obscure or even undreamed of ; and all this 
light is reflected upon that most complicated of all living 
forms, the bodily organism of man. Historical, anthropologi- 
cal, and psychological researches are increasing the world's 
stock of information regarding the actual nature of man, in his 
sexual, political, and other social relations. Although the 
term " social self " is a complete misnomer, and the use of the 
term even with a figurative reference likely to be mischievous, 
certain truths for which the conception stands are firmly 
established. Meantime the chemico-physical knowledge of 
mere things so-called has been growing apace. And all the 
growth in spite of many deficiencies, gaps, and discrepancies, 
and of much admixture of error, cannot be denied to have 
reference to the evolution of man's knowledge of Reality. The 
field won at the expense of so much human toil and suffering 
cannot be surrendered to those who plead either the mistakes 
and limitations of science or the doubts and denials of an 
agnostic philosophy. 

2. It may also be claimed, as an assured result of human 
knowledge, that all the beings and all the transactions of the 
world constitute some sort of a unity. All so-called laws, 
indeed, seem to admit of exceptions. Strictly demonstrative 
proof is nowhere applicable in the attainment of knowledge as 
to the universal and unchanging nature, even of physical 
beings and physical events. Wandering stars there are ; 
kinds of atoms that seem not to enter at all freely into the 
mixtures upon which the existence and the serviceableness of 
things depend ; monsters that appear as whimsical departures 
from the onward march of life towards its crowning achieve- 
ments ; caprices in the conduct of nature not a few. Human 
history and human development, not infrequently, seems void 



SPHERES OF REALITY 417 

of all control under intelligible ideas. Yet the totality is a 
Cosmos, an orderly whole ; the world's course gives increas- 
ing tokens of a movement toward some sort of an ideal and 
unifying end. Reality is, in its trans-subjective character, 

— as regards its "in-itself" Being, — a Unity; it is not 
merely the shadow cast on a dark background of chaos, by 
the unifying actus of man's conscious mind. 

3. But what every knower knows most immediately and 
assuredly — by an envisagement which carries with it a clear 
but incomplete picture of the " what," and which attaches this 
picture to the consciousness of a " that " — is the here-and-now 
being of his self-conscious, willing, and cognitive Self. Analy- 
sis of the nature of knowledge shows that in the cognitive pro- 
cess itself all the spirit of man — intellect, feeling, and will 

— takes part. For this highest and most assured knowledge 
is the envisagement of the nature of reality as a self-conscious 
spiritual life. Further analysis of those characteristics which 
all men agree to ascribe to external things shows that their 
reality, too, is known — though much more obscurely and 
with fainter conviction — as consisting in the possession of 
characteristics like those which the knower knows himself to 
have. And even as the individual man comes to regard his 
own body in its manifold relations to the life of the spirit 
that " is in him," he finds the same truth exemplified. This 
body is a thing among things ; but it joins the spirit in the 
temporary work of constructing the unity of a Self, because 
it, too, partakes in the characteristics of spirit — though not 
identical with the spirit of the self-conscious knower. It is a 
loan from nature, borrowed on terms which indicate that the 
temporary partnership thus formed is significant as to the real 
nature of the human body as well as of every other thing. 

4. And, finally, the object which the supreme synthesis of 
reflective thinking constructs cannot, without qualification, 
be said to be an object of knowledge ; but neither is it an 
object of pure imagination, or of faith that reposes on grounds 

27 



418 A THEORY OF REALITY 

warm with emotion but bare of knowledge. Like all other 
legitimate syntheses, this synthesis of speculative philosophy 
has its grounds in knowledge ; and it has reference, not to 
mere forms or laws of thinking but to the constitution of the 
real, to that which is " ^raws-subjective " in the sense of being 
independent for its own actualization upon the cognitive activ- 
ity of man. For this reason we have called our discussions a 
" Theory of Reality." And, indeed, metaphysics, like all 
serious pursuits of the reflective mind, starts with knowledge. 
In its analysis of the categories and its interpretation of their 
meaning as applied to selves and to things, metaphysics is 
knowledge. Thus far pursued, it states its results in some- 
what like the following terms : The world of concrete reali- 
ties, existing under the formal conditions of space and time, 
is known as some sort of a unity after the analogy of the 
self. This larger Self, which somehow comprehends myself, 
body and mind, and all other selves and things, we have 
ventured to call the " Absolute Self," — with the promise to 
consider whether there is any necessary impropriety, not to 
say self-contradiction, in such a compound term. Having, in 
reliance upon the advanced development of the knowledge of 
the race, felt the impulse to frame a theory which shall express, 
upon the basis of this knowledge, the highest ideals of what 
really is in each self, and of what ought to be realized in the 
world at large, philosophy attempts its supreme synthesis. 
The inner reality of all beings is Spirit ; the system of known 
selves and things is the " manifestation" in time and space of 
this Spirit. 

Only ethics, art, and religion, can properly expand, support, 
and glorify such a conclusion as the foregoing. At the same 
time, this is a legitimate conclusion of reflective thinking 
upon a basis furnished by an analysis of undoubted cognitive 
experience. It remains for the present treatise only to ex- 
amine this synthesis in comparison with others that are 
founded upon the same experience. 



CHAPTER XVI 

MATTER 

Among the conceptions under which the reflective thinking 
of man has endeavored to summarize the permanent and uni- 
versal characteristics of the being and behavior of things, 
there is one which seems most remote from the conclusions 
reached by our previous metaphysical discussions. The term 
answering to this conception is " Matter ; " and the specula- 
tive synthesis which rests satisfied with this term as affording 
an acceptable explanatory principle is called " materialism." 
In the history of philosophy, at least so far as philosophy has 
been pursued by those who aim at a comprehensive and sys- 
tematic technique, so-called materialism has commonly been 
more or less in disrepute. Especially at the present time is 
it true that few, or none, who cultivate the metaphysics of 
the schools are willing to espouse and defend the term, how- 
ever much of its ancient or more modern tenets they may actu- 
ally credit. Therefore, lively polemics or attacks in front as 
directed against materialism, are at present destined to be 
regarded as similar to the thankless task of fighting ghosts 
or of pulling down men of straw. Nor does the case of the 
writer who undertakes this task seem improved after it has 
been shown that the evil remains, though its title be changed ; 
or even that the materialistic way of regarding the world and 
human life is all the more intellectually seductive and prac- 
tically mischievous because its advocates will not frankly 
acknowledge their true allegiance by adopting a time-honored 
name. 



420 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Polemics, however, even if they were at all likely to be 
grateful and effective with present day students of meta- 
physical system, would not accord with the most cherished 
purpose of this book. It is not so much dialectics even as 
it is a receptive and genial criticism, which we think it right 
to employ in discussing any "theory of reality" that is a 
rival of our own. Nor are we inclined to make an exception 
in the case of that theory which might properly enough be 
called " Modern Materialism*" For the term " Matter " is 
convenient and even necessary. And the conceptions which 
the term embodies, though in a somewhat unwarrantably 
loose and confused manner, are valid for the philosophical 
as well as for the scientific understanding of reality. In- 
deed, they are, in part, the very conceptions with which we 
have been familiarizing ourselves ; and for the valid applica- 
tion of which to the real being and actual transactions of all 
things ("non-selves") we have been contending. 

But what is the meaning of the experience which justifies 
so large and loose a formation as the conception answering 
to the term Matter ? It is no less than that involved in the 
following line of thought that leads up to a conclusion which 
one need not hesitate to embrace. Material beings, so-called, 
considered as they really exist and actually set up the changes 
whose forms and laws science investigates, cannot be ex- 
plained at all except upon some theory which admits them 
to a certain share in the characteristics of an Absolute Self. 
Nor, when the question is raised : " In precisely what of the 
characteristics of selfhood do things share?" can the inves- 
tigator easily discern where the limit is firmly and unmistak- 
ably to be set. For, if we are to find in " matter " its own 
explanatory principle, then surely this principle must include 
those conceptions that are needed to explain individual things 
and their transactions, as given in our actual experience with 
things. But this significant conclusion has been growing 
clearer from the beginning of the present discussion : The 



MATTER 421 

existence of each thing and the actuality of every transaction 
between things, is in need of all the categories for its complete 
explanation. But all the categories are interconnected, and 
yet not identical " moments " of man's selfhood projected 
into things. The warrant for this procedure lies so deep 
in the very nature of human knowledge that only in this way 
is knowledge at all possible for man. Its warrant lies so deep 
in the very nature of the object of knowledge that only in this 
way does man know anything about so-called external nature. 
If, then, the term " matter " is used at all as an explana- 
tory metaphysical principle, one of two admissions must con- 
stantly accompany its use. Either it must be admitted that 
the term is simply designed to summarize some of the more 
non-self-like characteristics and doings of things — such, for 
example, as astronomy, physics, and chemistry make the 
subjects of investigation ; or else it must be admitted that 
by the term much more is meant than the merely popular or 
the customary scientific use of it would seem to justify. In 
' the one case matter becomes an abstraction for certain 
definite characteristics only of the Absolute Self, as these 
characteristics are expressed in things, but without recogniz- 
ing their essentially self-like character. In the other case, 
the term would much better be dropped entirely, for its use 
is likely to be deceptive by way of covering much more than 
is intended or is clearly apparent. In other words, just so 
long as the recognized characteristics of all material exist- 
ences are confined to the " crude lumpishness " and mere 
massive inertia of things, the principle called matter is 
quite unable to afford a complete explanation of any thing, 
or of any transaction between things. To give to this prin- 
ciple any life and efficiency, it is necessary to introduce still 
other " moments " into our grouping of conceptions under 
this term. And to make the principle adequate to explain 
the infinite variety of that system of concrete and actual 
things with which man's cognitive experience presents him, 



422 A THEORY OF REALITY 

it is necessary so to enlarge this group of conceptions as to 
comprise within it all those categories, the essential nature and 
the significance of which are constituents of our theory of 
reality. That is to say, " matter " must have become some- 
thing far different from what is ordinarily understood by 
matter, in order fully to summarize the explanation of any 
material Thing. 

The compound conception indicated by the word " matter " 
must always be regarded as an abstraction derived from the 
study of particular things. This is true whether our atten- 
tion be confined to those meanings which are empirical and 
scientific in their genesis and character, or whether our criti- 
cism be extended to any of its more speculative meanings. 
As Wundt has well said : 1 "In truth the speculative and the 
empirico-scientific conception of matter, in spite of the differ- 
ence of motives that have produced them, form constituents 
of a single development in so far as, in both cases, the funda- 
mental relation maintained by the knower to his object, is, 
in fine, the same." To show this it is scarcely necessary 
to repeat the familiar statement that there is in reality no 
matter in general ; in reality, there are only concrete indi- 
vidual things. By using a term, then, which summarizes 
our experience with these things, it can only be meant to 
designate that complex conception which includes the char- 
acteristics in the possession of which they all agree. But 
each of their characteristics, in turn (such as "mass," "in- 
ertia," " impenetrability," etc.) is itself existent only as a 
conception derived from observing the behavior, under a 
great variety of circumstances and in varying relations, of 
these same concrete individual things. Therefore it is proper 
to speak of the term "Matter" as resulting from the second 
degree of abstractness, since it stands for a "grouping" of 
conceptions, a synthesis of many thoughts, each of which is 
derived from many individual acts of our experience with 
things. 

1 System der Philosophie, p. 447. 



MATTER 423 

It is quite too often forgotten that the valid and defen- 
sible conception of matter, whether empirical and scientific or 
more purely speculative, is a very modern affair. What it is 
to be a real thing, is a question which the knowledge of 
man has always prepared him to answer in a practically satis- 
factory although very fragmentary way. But, What are the 
accredited characteristics of matter in general? is a question 
for the answer to which the requisite information has been 
wanting until comparatively recent times. It is, moreover, a 
question which, in our judgment, only the physical and natural 
sciences, are competent to answer or even to essay. Purely 
speculative answers to such an inquiry, or answers which take 
their point of starting in the interests of philosophy, are 
worthless. Only from the observation of what concrete 
things really are, and of what they actually do, can the 
problem, What is matter? find its valid solution. We ac- 
cept, then, the guidance of the physico-chemical sciences in 
the consideration of this problem ; but we reserve here, as 
everywhere, the rights of criticism and of the metaphysician's 
point of view. When, then, it is said by a physicist like Sir 
William Thomson : " We cannot of course give a definition 
of matter which will satisfy the metaphysician, but the natur- 
alist may be content to know matter as that which can be 
perceived by the senses, or as that which can be acted upon 
by, or can exert a force," our response is : " The case is not 
at all so." The metaphysician is in duty bound to be satisfied 
with any definition which the naturalist affords, — if only this 
definition satisfies the two principal qualifications of every 
satisfactory definition. First : it must be comprehensive and 
internally consistent ; but above all it must be, second, based 
upon undoubted matter of fact. 

What the would-be constructor of a system of metaphysics 
will do with the naturalist's conception of matter, when once it 
has been made satisfactory to all the naturalists themselves, 
may be described as follows : He will test the conception to see 



424 A THEORY OF REALITY 

if it possesses the characteristics of every satisfactory defini- 
tion ; he will then accept it, and subject it to the process of 
further reflective thinking with a view to discern its significance 
for the truth of reality and its place in a systematic and crit- 
ical Theory of Reality. But, alas! at the present time the 
former of these tasks is the more difficult of the two. For it 
is not so much the discontent of metaphysicians with natural- 
ists, as the discontent of naturalists with one another, and with 
their own knowledge of the subject, which furnishes the chief 
cause of the difficulties experienced by the expert student of 
the philosophy of nature. 

No one who undertakes to criticise the current conceptions 
of authorities in physical science can fail to be impressed with 
their confused and sometimes contradictory character. In 
spite of this the student of metaphysics must — as has been 
said — learn primarily from these authorities his answer to 
the question, " What is this so-called ' Matter,' and what can 
It alone do ? " We shall now briefly pursue the quest for 
satisfaction to this same inquiry. We shall do this remem- 
bering that the speculative conception of matter must be 
based upon the empirical and the scientific conception ; and 
also that every conception, whether that of the naturalist or 
that of the metaphysician, is only a convenient abstraction 
designed to summarize certain characteristics of the being 
and behavior of things. On the one hand, then, the con- 
ception of matter in general must cover all that things in 
general really are, and can actually do ; but if, on the other 
hand, this conception requires at any time to be so expanded 
as to include characteristics which are not properly ascrib- 
able to particular things, then this, its enlarged significance, 
must be frankly recognized and taken into account by our 
theory of reality. 

The characteristic, or aspect, of material beings that seems 
most foreign to any conclusion which affirms the ultimate 
spiritual nature of so-called matter is, of course, their " mass " 



MATTER 425 

— with the related qualities of extension in three dimensions,, 
of solidity, inertia, weight, momentum, etc. Mass is the one 
essential and unalterable characteristic of matter; and its 
expansion or contraction in volume, its increase or diminu- 
tion of solidity, the overcoming or the persistence of its 
inertia, the changing weight of bodies as dependent upon their 
relations in space, and the alterations in momentum that are 
connected with changes in velocity — all these do not affect* 
but rather assume the continuity and unalterableness of mass. 
Let a given body be compressed so as to reach its utmost 
limit of density or be dissipated through immeasurable space \ 
let it be rendered motionless or shot onward with inconceiv- 
able rapidity ; let it become a member of a complicated system 
of bodies or be isolated so as, ex hypothesis to stand alone in 
the universe, and through all these changes its mass remains 
unchanged. As formally constituted any particular material 
body can be put out of existence ; the characteristics of its 
energizing may be profoundly changed ; it may be rendered 
quite unrecognizable by the senses which were once familiar 
with it ; or it may be made impossible of recognition by any of 
the senses. But its mass cannot be annihilated or diminished. 
Mass is the permanent and essential characteristic of all 
matter ; or — to reverse the statement without changing its 
meaning : All Matter has mass. Such is the firm conviction 
of modern physics, however contrary to the immediate evi- 
dence of the senses such a conviction may seem to be. 

And what is true of each material body is true of that 
entire collection of such bodies which science recognizes as 
constituting the material universe. The mass of the matter 
in this universe is assumed itself to remain, amidst all changes 
in the bodies over which it is distributed, forever unchanged. 

Now " that which " has for its most fundamental and 
unalterable characteristic the possession of mere sameness of 
quantity, and which makes its being in reality known by 
persistently " bulking " the same, seems most unspiritual and 



426 A THEORY OF REALITY 

impersonal, no doubt. For was it not matter, thus con- 
sidered, which Newton spoke of as " brute and inanimate ? " 
But all matter is necessarily thus to be considered, with what- 
ever other changing characteristics it may seem to be 
endowed. How, then, can its " self-like " character be main- 
tained ? How can matter, in general, be regarded as a mani- 
festation, creation, or revelation, or as an emanation, aspect, 
or phase, of an Absolute Self ? 

The particular choice of words to indicate the permanent 
and essential relations between Matter and the Absolute Self 
does not concern us at this point. But the essentially self-like 
character of matter, even as treated by the physics of " mass," 
is apparent when we think ourselves through, along these two 
lines of reflection : first, so as to determine what is meant in 
reality by ascribing mass, and its allied characteristics, to all 
matter ; and second, so as to estimate how much (or rather, 
how little, how absolutely nothing), of our experience with 
material things can be accounted for in terms of mere 
mass. 

The experience with tilings in which originates the phy- 
sicist's right to regard matter as having the permanent char- 
acteristic of mass is not difficult to describe or to understand. 
Things affect his sense-consciousness ; and in his perceptive 
experience they appear as changing their spatial qualities 
and spatial relations, in a way that can be directly measured, 
or indirectly estimated, quantitatively. Now the mass of 
matter is the quantity, or amount, of the " that-which " 
whose name is " matter." To say that all matter, always 
has mass is the same thing as to say that the being of all 
material things can always be known, or imagined, as " so 
much " of a universal substrate. What is thus quantitatively 
measured or estimated by the physicist is always — primarily 
considered — the intensity, or the extensity of his own sensu- 
ous experience. And what measures, or estimates, is the 
physicist's intellect. When, then, it is affirmed that all 



MATTER 427 

;; matter has mass," it is stated, on the basis of a cognitive 
experience with all particular things, that quantity and 
number are not merely the physicist's subjective experiences 
of sense and intellect but are also categories which belong 
to things in reality. But what it is to have a being that is 
measurable and numerable, and what it is actually to possess 
the categories of quantity and of number, has already been 
made clear. The importance, the necessity even, of giving 
an interpretation in terms of selfhood, to these categories — 
not the less when they are applied to material things — has 
been sufficiently emphasized. All matter has — nay, It essen- 
tially is — measurable quantity. Quite contrary, then, to the 
prevalent impression, if we make serious work of applying 
these conceptions to the extra-meiitoMv real, we do but assert 
its permanent and unchanging possession of certain funda- 
mental self-like characteristics. 

Nor is the cogency of the conclusion diminished but rather 
enhanced by accepting those extensions of it upon which the 
modern science of physics particularly insists. In affirming 
that the mass of the matter of the universe is known, or as- 
sumed, to be unchangeable, the physicist pronounces no valid 
conclusion as to the finiteness, or infinity, of the World- 
Ground. He only states his conviction that, so far as man's 
experience with the system of material things goes, this 
assumption of its unchanging quantity, is the best in accord- 
ance with that experience. That is to say, as the data of 
experience accumulates, science is better able to affirm that, 
if any relatively large amounts of matter were being added 
to, or subtracted from the known physical universe, we 
should probably be able in time to detect the gain or the loss. 
But that the Absolute Self is not slowly increasing or di- 
minishing this quantitative sum-total of his immanent mani- 
festation — much less that He never will, or that He cannot 
— physical science has no power to pronounce ! Nor does 
the physicist make any pretence here to be dealing with the 



428 A THEORY OF REALITY 

metaphysically Infinite. For, as Riehl, 1 following the lead 
of Diihring, 2 has said : " An unchangeable quantity is finite. 
So, because matter and force are unchangeable in quantity, 
they must be finite in quantity ; for the infinite is no quantity, 
and the indefinite is no unchangeable quantity. The matter is 
determined by its mass ; therefore, the total sum of mass in 
the universe is a finite quantity, or in other words the world 
is finite as to mass." But to all these statements of Riehl 
must be added the qualification — so far as known to our 
sense-experience and capable of being treated by the empirical 
science of physics. 

Neither does the physical conception of the unchangeable 
character of the world's mass of matter affect either the 
character or the validity of our conceptions of space, time,, 
and causation. And if under the phrase, " the world as a 
whole," it is meant to include the existence and development 
of finite selves, the historical evolution of selves and of things 
in their mutual relations, and the all-inclusive Reality of the 
World-Ground, then the following declarations of the author 
just quoted are undoubtedly also true : " The quantity of 
mass, and the extent of it in space, plus the sum of all pro- 
cesses in time, does not exhaust the quantity of the world 
as a whole ; this whole does not come under a concept which 
is abstracted from the effect of things on conscious beings." 
This view of the problem of mass, as physics considers it,, 
enforces rather than contradicts the following important 
conclusion : Matter, considered as having mere mass, is as 
yet not an effective, explanatory principle of things ; it is not 
matter at all in any meaning of the term which will enable us 
to understand the existence and behavior of the totality of 
particular things. 

Before, however, we pass to the further consideration of 
this truth it may be noticed in passing, that this steady-going, 

1 Riehl, " Der Philosophische Kriticismus," II. ii. p. 302 f . 

2 Neue Grundmittel und Erfindungen zur Analysis, p. 88 f. 



MATTER 429 

and relatively unchangeable character of matter, as respects its 
mass, is a shrewd device on its part to lay in strong foun- 
dations the building of an intelligible Cosmos. It would be 
very inconvenient, to say the least, if the " that-which " whose 
amounts of being and action we call the mass of matter, 
were not accustomed to maintain a reliable status toward us, 
in so fundamental relations as these. 

Modern physics is, in general, agreed further to define 
" matter" as that being which we know by sense-perception 
and which comes under the laws of physical dynamics. In 
this it accords fairly well with such a metaphysical definition 
as the following : 1 " Matter is that conception of the Real, as 
substrate of the objective representation of time, which is 
deduced from the spatial sensations of pressure and resist- 
ance, of mobility and extension." A definition which may be 
declared to afford a relative contentment to the naturalist has 
been summarized in the following sentence : " Matter is that 
which can be perceived by the senses, or that which can be 
acted upon by or can exert force" (Thomson and Tait). 

It is unnecessary to analyze and discuss in detail the con- 
ception of matter which corresponds to the sentences quoted 
above. It should be noticed, however, that the conception 
comprises — or rather represents as an alternative — two sets 
of characteristics which do not rest upon precisely the same 
grounds. These are, first, those characteristics of material 
things which can be intuitively discerned by sense-perception ; 
and, second, a primary ability of material things to play a 
part, so to speak, in a system of interacting agencies whose 
existence and laws make, for their discovery and understand- 
ing, higher demands upon the observer's thought. But both 
these sets of characteristics are referred by the very language 
of the physicist's definition to a common substrate, or ground. 
This substrate, or ground, is hinted at by a device which we 
had occasion to subject to critical examination in an earlier 

1 Riehl, "Der Philosophische Kriticismus," II. i. p. 275. 



430 A THEORY OF REALITY 

part of our work (see p. 116 f.). It is dumbly indicated and 
mentioned with an air of mysterious agnosticism as though it 
were too remote from or too high above, ordinary experience 
to receive a definite name. It is called a " that-which." Mat- 
ter is " that-which " can be perceived, etc. ; or " that-which " 
can be acted upon, etc. But the alternative indicated by the 
word " or " which is introduced into the definition certainly 
does not mean that one may take one's choice between these 
as two mutually exclusive forms of conceiving of matter ; for 
both of the following more particular characterizations must 
be held as necessary attributes of this, their common sub- 
strate. Matter is then, by the naturalists of a contented 
mind, regarded both as that real being which becomes known 
to every percipient through the senses, and also as that real 
being which is known to physical science as the subject of 
acting and reacting forces. On the one hand, however, the 
scientific conception rests upon sense-perception as its base ; 
and, on the other hand, every plain man knows also some- 
thing about things as capable of being acted upon by, or as 
exerting, force. 

Now it is at once apparent to the critical student of meta- 
physics that even this minimum, sun-clear conception of mat- 
ter, becomes, when you open it, a perfect Pandora's box for 
the escape of those same categories which have already given 
us so much trouble. To speak of a " that-which" as the sub- 
ject of qualities, as the terminal point of issuing and entering 
forces, as the being that can make every man perceive it when 
he uses his senses, is, if we insist upon thoroughness in reflec- 
tive thinking, only to introduce the same obscure ontological 
problem which metaphysics has long striven with under the 
concept of " substantiality." Then, too, the physicist's defini- 
tion insists upon the truth of experience that matter is known 
as somehow the " cause " of changes in our perceptive con- 
sciousness; moreover, the different portions of matter must 
be regarded as interconnected in their modes of behavior, 



MATTER 431 

because they "exert force " — of course, upon one another as 
parts of a common material system. This aspect of this 
definition at once introduces us to the conception of regular 
ways of " being acted upon by," and of " exerting " force ; but 
these regular ways are nothing less than the " laws " of the 
physical universe, or of matter. The most ideal of the cate- 
gories — such as finality — is now not far ahead, and lying 
right across our path. 

At this point, however, certain vacillations and confusions 
of current physical conceptions need to be made the subject 
of remark. For some physicists have been accustomed to 
speak as though matter could exist apart from energy ; and, 
on the other hand, as though energy were a sort of additional 
entity which could operate "upon" matter from without, or 
could be distributed " among " different portions of matter in 
an external fashion. " Matter and energy " are thus treated 
as a pair of entities whose co-operation is necessary in order 
to explain the being and the transactions of things. Matter 
and energy are twins ; even though they are like the Siamese 
twins, bound together inseparably at their vital parts. On 
the contrary, the modern dynamic and evolutionary view of 
the world, in connection with an idealistic metaphysics, has 
recently progressed so far as to lead some physicists to make 
the attempt to state the reality of matter in terms of space 
and of energy only. But still others seem inclined to regard 
Matter as the wholly unknown Substrate which — being; exist- 
ent per se. as it were — is revealed to man by being the vehicle 
and seat of varying amounts of energy. Thus is energy con- 
ceived of as an entity that is somehow not essential to the 
very being, to the substantiality, of matter, but is rather 
regarded as the revealer of the character and state, for the 
present time, of some particular portion of matter. It is diffi- 
cult to see how, otherwise, one is to interpret the following- pas- 
sage from Clerk Maxwell : x " All that we know about matter 

1 Matter and Motion, p. 163 f, 



432 A THEORY OF REALITY 

relates to the series of phenomena in which energy is trans- 
ferred from one portion of matter to another, till in some part 
of the series our bodies are affected, and we become conscious 
of sensation. 

" By the mental process which is founded on such sen- 
sations we come to learn the conditions of these sensations, 
and to trace them to objects which are not part of our- 
selves, but in every case the fact that we learn is the mutual 
action between bodies. . . . Under various aspects it is called 
Force, Action and Reaction, and Stress, and the evidence of 
it is the change of the motion of the bodies between which 
it acts. 

" Hence, as we have said, we are acquainted with matter 
only as that which may have energy communicated to it from 
other matter, and which may, in its turn, communicate energy 
to other matter." 

The current physical conception of matter becomes further 
oppressed with internal difficulties or contradictions when we 
consider that, according to accepted tenets of physics, in- 
ertia is a primary and universal characteristic of matter. 
This characteristic, as commonly defined, seems difficult of re- 
conciliation with the characteristic possession of that energy 
which, being received or being parted with, physics regards 
as also essential to the very nature of matter. For we are 
told that by inertia is meant " the essential incapacity of 
matter of altering the state into which it is put by an external 
cause, whether that state be rest or motion." 1 By combining 
conceptions of inertia and mass, we reach the conclusion that 
inertia is the " quantity (or mass) of matter considered as 
resisting the communication of motion." Yet again, on ex- 
pressing this characteristic of inertia in terms that are better 
suited to the atomic theory of the constitution of matter, it 
may be affirmed that " the incapacity of all material points to 

1 See Whewell's " Mechanics " (7 ed.), where it is declared (p. 9) that " matter 
is originally apprehended by its resistance to the action of force." 



MATTER 433 

put themselves in movement, or to change the movement 
which has "been communicated to them, without the aid 
of a force, is what is understood by the inertia of matter.'*' x 
Upon Descartes' notion of the primary property of matter as 
announced in his * ; First Law of Nature," — namely, that 
every individual thing so far as in it lies, perseveres in the 
same state, whether of motion or of rest," — Clerk Max- 
well 2 observes : " In the words, ' so far as in it lies,' properly 
understood, is to be found the true primary definition of 
matter, and the true measure of quantity." This need of 
material bodies to have the cause of their changes in space 
lie outside of themselves, this self-incapacity (quantum in se 
est) to move when at rest, or to come to rest when moving, 
is emphasized in Maxwell's own declaration that we "are 
acquainted with matter only as that which may have energy 
communicated to it." etc. 3 

The foregoing and other similar attempts to combine the 
physical conceptions of inertia and of energy in the same 
substrate. Matter, are, in expression if not in thought, unsatis- 
factory and even contradictory. The same reality cannot 
be both the source of energy as thus defined and also the 
victim of inertia, at the same time. If by the term " matter" 
modern physics means to designate the entire system of 
physical things, considered as operative and yet irrespective 
of its genesis and its relation to absolute mind, nothing can 
be further from its own accepted principles than to speak of 
any portion of matter as wholly dependent for any of its 
changes (from motion to decreased motion and rest, or from 
rest to motion) upon forces external to itself. Physics neces- 
sarily assumes the sum-total of matter as already in motion, 
and as fully equipped with the completed quantity, and with all 
the kinds of forces necessary to do its ceaseless work. If, 

1 Compare If. Poisson. 1; Traite de Mecanique,'" H, p. 20S f. 

2 Matter and Motion,, p. 26 f. 

3 Ibid., p. 164 f. 

28 



434 A THEORY OF REALITY 

however, we mean to consider any actual portion of matter, 
any material thing, no matter how " brute and inanimate " it 
seems, such portion of matter can never properly be said to 
be dependent for its changes of position, its acceleration or 
decrease of motion, or its internal molecular alterations, wholly 
upon forces communicated to it from without. Indeed, if 
every material being were thus burdened with inertia, whence 
could any of the forces that produce the actual changes of 
things be derived ? A collection of wholly inert bodies, or of 
bodies that — so to speak — had no principles of change 
within themselves, could never constitute, much less build up, 
a world like that in which we find ourselves existing. This 
actual world of experience, with which physics as an empirical 
science deals, contains no beings that are completely at rest ; 
neither does it show us beings that are moving in mass, or 
are undergoing internal changes, with a perfectly uniform 
velocity. Such a world lies only in the theoretical dream- 
land of "pure " physics. 

And, finally on this point, it is scarcely necessary to remind 
ourselves again that all the language of scientific physics 
about the " communication" of forces from one body to another, 
and about the u transmission," or the " distribution," or the 
" conservation and correlation " of energy, is highly figurative. 
Force, we have decided, is not an entity that can be separated 
from actual things and made to rule over or dwell within 
them. (Compare chap. X.) 

However unfortunately he may at times express himself, 
the thoughtful physicist is not unacquainted with the truths 
which have just been restated by us. One of the authors 
already quoted (M. Poisson), in defining the inertia of matter, 
says : " The word does not signify that matter is incapable of 
action ; on the contrary every material point (sic) at all times 
finds the principle of its movement in the action of other 
points, but never in itself." Now, in the unqualified way in 
which this statement is left standing by its author, it is 



MATTER 435 

untrue, and even absurd. It can be made, however, to express 
important truths if it is qualified so as to read, " every 
material body always finds the principle of its movement 
(or, rather, change in the rate of movement), in part, in the 
action of other bodies and never in itself alone" Another 
writer on physics (Clerk Maxwell) comes nearer than is 
customary with himself or with others to a fortunate state- 
ment of the complete truth, in the following sentences : 
Force is " but one aspect of that mutual action between two 
bodies which is called by Newton Action and Reaction, and 
which is now more briefly expressed by the single word 
6 Stress ' ; " and again : " If we confine our attention to one 
of the portions of matter, we see, as it were, only one side 
of the transaction, viz., that which affects the portion of 
matter under our consideration ; and we call this aspect of 
the phenomenon, with reference to its effect, an External 
Force acting on that portion of matter, and with reference to 
its cause we call it the Action of the other portion of matter." l 
Let now our reflective thinking return to the actual facts of 
man's cognitive experience with things as real and concrete. 
For physicists, as truly if not as unprofitably as metaphysicians, 
are liable to be too much captivated by mere abstractions, and 
by the prospect of rendering their science " pure " and no 
longer subject to its proper empirical limitations. These 
things, which man's daily use of his senses — not without 
thought and instinctive metaphysics contributing to his cogni- 
tion — makes known to him, are manifold, highly differen- 
tiated qualitatively, ceaselessly active in changes, whether 
regarded as masses of matter or as constituted of separable 
molecules and atoms. They all appear in existence, either as 
bearing more or less specialized forms, or else as rapidly un- 
dergoing evolution by processes which the chemico-physical 
sciences can only imperfectly describe and can scarcely at all 
explain. Even the most " brute and inanimate " portions of 

1 See "Matter and Motion," p. 53 f. 



436 A THEORY OF REALITY 

matter have their specific series or round of changes defined for 
them under the influence of complicated causes, which we, in 
our ignorance, consider as belonging to the " nature" of things. 
Not one " Thing" among them all that is not self-active after 
its own nature, or kind ; not one of them that is not also de- 
pendent on many — we may even suspect, upon all — of the 
others, for the character of both its actions and its reactions. 
And this present, vast and incomprehensible complexity of 
habits, both of suffering from inertia and of showing the pos- 
session of energy, cannot be reduced to any such simplicity of 
elementary beings and conditions as does not virtually contain 
within itself the principles necessary to explain the very pres- 
ent complexity from which all efforts to explain start out. 

From this present point of view, then, we seem compelled 
to agree with Du Bois-Reymond in his declaration that " sep- 
arately " force and matter do not exist ; or, in the words of 
another writer (Cotta) : " Nothing in the world justifies us in 
assuming the existence per se of forces, independent of the 
bodies from which they proceed and upon which they act." 
Further critical examination shows, however, that both these 
expressions are framed so as virtually to take back the ygtj 
truth they are designed to assert. If forces can, in reality, 
" proceed from " one body and " act upon " another, then 
forces must be conceived of as somehow existent per se. And 
strictly speaking, to frame any physical theory in terms of 
force and matter, is to assume that the two terms employed 
represent entities which may at least be conceived of as exist- 
ing " separately." Nor can this difficulty be escaped, or our 
statement as to the precise terms on which things actually 
exist and operate be improved, by slurring over the reality of 
those experiences which lead the mind irresistibly to the em- 
ployment of both conceptions — namely, Matter and Force. 
For instance, we can neither resolve force into a new relation, 
into " any circumstance that determines motion," nor can we 
consider matter as existent, or efficient, if it be not per se pos- 



MATTER 437 

sessed of, and in the actual exercise of, what physics is pleased 
to call energy or force. 

The language of philosophy, although by no means always 
sufficient to lead us at once into clear sunlight for these physi- 
cal conceptions, is in general better adapted to tell that truth 
which physics means to express. Of one important aspect of 
this truth, the statement of Lotze, 1 although not altogether 
fortunate, is suggestive: " Forces" (as taken with the laws, 
which are said to govern, or express the formulas of the 
forces) " are conditions which enable one thing to effect an- 
other and to place itself to that other in different relations." 
So Professor Watson : 2 " The true definition of Force is to be 
found in the infinite relations between material things which 
constitute the world as reair Or, to quote Mr. Spencer's 
more elaborate conception : " Force, as we know it, can be 
regarded only as a certain conditioned effect of the uncondi- 
tioned cause, as the relative reality indicating to us an abso- 
lute reality by which it is immediately produced." More 
compact, nervy, and direct is the expression of Mr. Lewes : a 
" Force is the dynamic aspect of existence, the correlate of 
Matter." And Professor Bain 4 goes so far as to assert that 
matter, force, and inertia, are the three names for substantially 
the same fact . . . force and matter not two things, but one 
thing. " Force, inertia, momentum, matter, are all one fact." 5 

If now the facts and truths which are either recognized or 
implied by such scientific and philosophical tenets as the fore- 
going are examined in the light of our experience with things, 
we are forced to this metaphysical conclusion : The being of 
the zuorld of many things has a certain .unity of Substrate or 
Ground ; and this Substrate or Ground is permanent amid all 
the changes of particular things. While they change in mani- 

1 See his " Metaphysik," II. v. for a discussion of this conception. 

2 Journal of Speculative Philosophy, XII. p. 137. 

3 Problems of Life and Mind, II., pp. 229 ff. 

4 Logic, vol. II., p. 225 f. 

5 Ibid., II., p. 389. 



438 A THEORY OF REALITY 

fold ways, It (the so-called " Matter " out of which these things 
are composed) changes not — so far as its essential character- 
istics are concerned. Among the essential characteristics of 
matter, most permanent and universal are those which, in 
abstract terms, are defined by physics as mass, and inertia, 
and action and interaction caused by force. Thus is recog- 
nized the capacity of each portion of matter for resistance 
to unlimited or lawless change ; as well as its ability, in 
accordance with a variety of principles which admit of more 
particular determination by experience alone, to put forth of 
itself, and to induce in other portions of matter, certain 
limited and " principled " changes. This permanent and uni- 
versal Being of Things, for which, when considered as the 
subtrate of all particular physical existences, the abstract term 
" matter " is employed, will not change unless it has good 
reason therefor. It asserts its persistence as so-called 
"inertia." But then, on the other hand, It is always and 
everywhere actually in a process of change ; and this ceaseless 
change is because, taken as a whole, " matter " is an enor- 
mous and seemingly exhaustless store of energy, which is — 
so to speak — constantly being distributed and redistributed 
among the infinite number of particular things. 

If, then, we are to use the term matter as an abstraction 
which shall conveniently summarize all those permanent and 
universal characteristics which man's experience recognizes as 
belonging. to so-called material things, we must recognize this 
use as covering far more than the term covers in that use of 
it to which physics is committed. Matter, regarded as a Sub- 
trate having its essence merely as a measurable quantity, — 
" brute and inanimate " but bulking so much, — cannot be the 
stuff out of which actual, concrete, and infinitely variable 
things are made. In order to constitute the reality of all 
things, Matter must not only be acted upon by, and exert 
force (or rather a great variety of forces under an infinity of 
changing conditions), but it must also, of itself, possess these 



MATTER 439 

forces ; it must be, per se, Force. But this is, as the analysis 
and application to reality of the conception of force has 
already shown us, to be a Will. Every will, as each man 
knows it in his own case and in the cases of other selves, is a 
self-active being that acts, however, only as conditioned by the 
relations which it sustains to other beings, and yet toward the 
end of realizing its own ideas. Such, too, is virtually the com- 
plex conception which we apply in the effort to understand, as 
fully as possible, the real being and the actual doings of every 
particular Thing. Xo portion of matter can be a material 
thing, however much we may depreciate or affect to despise 
its materiality, without having so much of a share in the 
World's ideal existence and ideal aims as is implied in all 
this. 

We repeat our view of the problem of material Reality — 
of what is called Matter — as seen from the philosophical 
point of standing. That which physics designates as a total- 
ity, or rather as a genuine and effective unity including all 
material things, cannot be poorer and meaner than the con- 
stitution of the poorest and meanest being which it is meant 
to include. By " matter," considered as the possessor and 
user of all the force that distributes and differentiates itself 
according to the appropriate relations in an infinity of ideal 
ways, and that thus attains a marvellous variety of ideal ends, 
which somehow, in spite of their variety, combine into the 
Unity of a physical Cosmos — by this substance thus described 
and defined, we cannot possibly understand mere mass of 
dead, unideating, " stuff," moved from without by forces ex- 
ternal to itself. But what must be covered, either by this or 
by some other equivalent term ? What less can be under- 
stood by any such term than the summing-up, in a vital and 
effective way, of all those categories that characterize the 
system of so-called material, or physical things ? But these 
are the categories which have been shown to define our con- 
ception of an Absolute Self. 



440 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Physics, then, is quite at liberty, in the effort for a better 
handling of its complex and intricate phenomena, to isolate 
certain aspects of things ; and even to treat the abstractions 
thus secured as though they, of themselves, stood for some- 
thing that exists alone, and acts effectively in the world of 
reality. But when physics substitutes any of these abstrac- 
tions for the total living Reality, or when it combines all its 
favorite abstractions into some single conception and makes 
use of the result to dispense with the recognition of the 
deeper meaning of yet more fundamental principles, it steps 
quite out of its safe and proper path. 

Suppose, then, that the student of nature, " abandoning all 
disguise " and " prolonging the vision backward across the 
boundary of experimental evidence," discerns in " that matter 
which we, in our ignorance and notwithstanding our professed 
reverence for its creator, have hitherto covered with oppro- 
brium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of 
life ; " several methods are open to the dissenting philoso- 
pher. Among them perhaps there is none better than that of 
responding : " Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him 
declare I unto you." For this declaration of the physicist is 
capable of being understood as amounting in substance to the 
avowal of the philosopher Schelling : 1 " Matter is the general 
seed-corn of the universe, wherein everything is involved that 
is brought forth in subsequent evolutions." And have we not 
the same physicist's 2 word for it : " If life and thought be the 
very flower of matter and force, any definition which omits 
life and thought must be inadequate, if not untrue " ? But 
to recognize the essential qualifications of selfhood as belong 
ing to the principle to which the existence and the potency of 
all things, even of living things, is referred, and then to 
ascribe its effects to an abstraction which has been already 
denuded of the most essential, persistent, and illumining of 

1 Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur, p. 315. 

2 See Tyndall's "Fragments of Science " : " Musings on the Matterhorn." 



MATTER 441 

these qualificati ns, is to play fast and loose with language, 

and with the processes of thinking which make language 
intelligible. Of course, that can be got out of any group :: 
conceptions which you begin by putting into the same group. 
But if the particular group which your theory means to have 
do the work of explaining the being and transactions of all 
material things is to accomplish its heavy task. It must 
possess all the essential characteristics of these things, con- 
sidered in their genesis, their mutual relations within the 
unity of aD ideal system, and their development. And this 
is to possess the essential characteristics of an Absolute Self. 1 
That the conception which physical science includes under 
the word matter, even when it involves such a wide group- 
ing of effective characteristics as has already been discussed, 
does not suffice to account for the constitution, the behavior, 
and the development of material things, is confessed by the 
very terms of the current atomic theory. The known world 
of material things is much too varied and changeable in its 
forms to be underst: 3 without resort to further principles 
of differentiation. How to account for its infinite variety in 
terms of unifying conceptions — this is the problem for sci- 
ence and philosophy alike. Space. Time, and Causation, 
when employed as abstractions by philosophy will not accom- 
plish this task. But neither will Mass. Energy. Action and 
Reaction, and other similar abstractions of physics. The 
real world, try as we may to overlook or confuse the fact, is 
based upon an infinity of distinctions. If m:~rr is the me 
womb from which all material things proceed, still the par- 
ticular character, the individual preferences and startlingly 
unique performances of her children are no less observable. 
Hence the need of some attempt to lay the foundations of our 
theory of reality in a larger variety of qualitatively different 

1 This curious sentence from Bacon is illustrative of the truth we are enforc- 
ing: "' Atque asseien la niateri^, oalis am ne en sst ita wnata et apparata e: 

formata. ut omnis virtus, essentia, actus atque moms naturalis ejus consecurio 
et emanatio esse [ :ss::." 



442 A THEORY OF REALITY 

principles than those which the so-called " pure science " of 
physics affords. 

It is not necessary for the student of metaphysics to 
attempt in detail to expound the nature, or to trace the his- 
tory, of modern chemistry. Neither is the student of meta- 
physics called upon to arbitrate any strife which may arise 
between chemistry and physics over the question as to which 
of the two is destined ultimately to absorb the other. For- 
tunately, too, the chemists themselves may safely be left to 
investigate further the nature and the relations of those 
hypothetical entities to whose existence and potencies their 
science refers the constitution and the behavior of all material 
things. Only, where there is confusion now philosophy may 
ask for clearness — to be obtained within reasonable time. 
And where fundamental metaphysical conceptions are at 
stake, philosophy must assume the part of critic, and even 
of guide and arbiter, for the students of both these positive 
sciences. 

Upon any hypothesis which renders the atomic theory 
purely dynamical and mathematical, and which regards the 
atom as merely the unextended centre of forces of attraction 
and repulsion, metaphysics has something decisive to say. 
This view, as held by Faraday and stated by Tyndall, 1 endeav- 
ors to substitute the abstract conception of the infinite divisibil- 
ity of space for those elemental realities which result from 
the exceedingly minute but actual subdivisions of material 
things. And it bases this attempt upon assumed inability of 
the imagination, — as is shown by the following series of ques- 
tions : " What do we know of the atom apart from its force ? 
You imagine a nucleus which may be called «, and surround 
it by forces which may be called m ; to my mind the a, or nu- 
cleus, vanishes and the substance consists of the powers of m. 
And indeed what notion can we form of the nucleus independ- 
ent of its powers ? What thought remains on which to hang 

1 See "Faraday as a Discoverer," Am. ed. p. 123. 



MATTER 443 

the imagination of an a independent of the acknowledged 
forces ? " Now, all this is one of the most facile and cheap, 
as well as most fallacious, forms of the argumentum ah difficult 
tate imaginationis. It may itself be employed with most 
destructive effect against any attempt to substitute mere 
centres of force for exceedingly small subdivisions of material 
substance. To the questions just quoted one may respond 
with questions which throw equal doubt upon the reality of 
the forces that " surround " the atom. How is imagination 
to depict these forces as independent entities that pull and 
push from their purely fictitious and unreal seats at calculable 
points in space. But when both nucleus a and surrounding 
forces m have vanished because they are equally inconceiv- 
able by the imagination, what remains of the atom xf Its 
problem is, indeed, solved for it ; but the solution is the total 
dissolution of all the atom's claim to a place in reality. In 
a word, x has lost itself by losing both its a and its m. 

What is the value to our cognitive experience, and what is 
allowed and confirmed by a critical metaphysics, when we 
speak of the atom as a constituent of material things has 
already been made sufficiently clear. For the atom, or 
element of all material things, its " substantiality " and its 
"energy," guided by ideal considerations to ideal ends, mean 
precisely as much as, and no more than, is meant by applying 
the same metaphysical conceptions to those material things 
which are said to be composed of atoms. Really to be, and 
to be a centre of forces, is no more or less difficult or myste- 
rious for little beings than for big beings. Size has nothing 
whatever to do with the understanding or the validating of 
these categories. 

If, then, the science of chemistry wishes to maintain the 
atomic theory in the presence of a critical metaphysics, it 
must regard its atoms in somewhat the following way. 
" Atoms " are those hypothetical elements of material things 
which it seems fitting, and which it may become necessary to 



444 A THEORY OF REALITY 

assume as originally endowed with all those characteristics 
that are found indispensable to an explanation of our matter- 
of-fact experience with such things. In its own language its 
theory is of the following order: "Atoms are not material 
points; they possess a sensible" (better, an appreciable) 
" dimension and doubtless a fixed form ; they differ in their 
relative weights and in the motions with which they are ani- 
mated. They are indivisible and indestructible by physical 
and chemical forces, for which they act in some manner as 
points of application. The diversity of matter results from 
primordial differences, perpetually existing in the very essence 
of these atoms and in the qualities which are the manifesta- 
tion of them. 

" Atoms attract each other, and this atomic attraction is 
affinity. It is doubtless a form of universal attraction, but 
the former differs from the latter in that it is not obedient 
to the influence of mass ; it depends on the quality of the 
atoms. Affinity is elective, as has been said for a hundred 
years." 1 

Further discussions as to the physical qualities and the 
possible internal constitution of the different species of atoms 
do not essentially change their metaphysical value or their 
application to the explanation of human experience with 
material things. Among such discussions are those, for 
example, over the following questions: Are the atoms to be 
conceived of as hard, perfectly incompressible and inelastic 
bodies, with a quite rigid shape (not necessarily a "fixed 
form ") ; or are they elastic, of quasi-fluid structure, and 
capable of assuming a variety of shapes, and of rapidly 
changing their internal constitution ? Now, nothing can be 
more " plump " than the contradictions in the statements of 
different authorities on some of these points. According to 
one writer, 2 " the concept ' elastic atom ' is a contradiction in 

1 From Wurtz, " The Atomic Theory," p. 308. 

2 Prof. Wittwer, in " Schlomilch's Zeitschrift fiir Math, und Phys." vol. xv. 
p. 11 



MATTER 445 

terms, because elasticity always presupposes other parts the 
distances between which can be increased or diminished.*' 
''- But. on the contrary," says Sir "Win. Thomson,'* we are for- 
bidden by the modern theory of the conservation of energy 
to assume inelasticity of the ultimate molecules, whether of 
ultra-mundane or mundane matter." 1 Thus atoms are really 
to be conceived of as "the rotating parts of an inert, perfect 
fluid, which fills all space, but which is, when not rotating, 
absolutely unperceived by our senses.'' " A vortex filament, 
in a perfect fluid, is a true i atom." but it is not hard like those 
of Lucretius ; it cannot be cut, because it necessarily wriggles 
out from under the knife." 2 

Such a conflict between the geometrical and the dynamical 
forms of the atomic theory can, as Wundt has declared, be 
settled only by extending the limits of our experience. Nor 
is it unlikely that it never can be settled at all. " God only 
knows," what the true nature of the atom really is ; and 
perhaps He knows that it is, even in its most elaborate 
modern form, a lame and inadequate attempt to solve the 
great problem of our experience with a World which has in 
it such an infinite variety of differently qualified and yet 
mutually interacting and rationally connected things ; and 
which, therefore, we somehow feel ourselves compelled to 
consider as, after all, only One. 

We must, however, at this point protest in the interests of 
intellectual honesty and of the principle of sufficient reason, 
against all attempts to break down the testimony of qualita- 
tive chemistry ; — against that merely physical atomism, which 
claims to derive the qualitative properties of matter solely 
from the forms of atomic motion. Should this attempt suc- 
ceed, it would not simplify our cognitions, or our theory of 
reality, in the least. An irreducible variety in the modes 

1 Comp. a concluding Article by A. Presnel. on the law of elasticity as applied 
to the ultimate particles of the ether. Poggendorff's Annal.. vol. xcix. p. 494 ff. 

- G. P. Tait. '• Properties of Matter."" pp. 13, 19 f. Comp. VTurtz, '"The 
Atomic Theory," p. 327 f. 



446 A THEORY OF REALITY 

of the motion of an atom, that is of one kind so far as 
its physical characteristics are concerned, would be no easier 
to comprehend as an explanatory principle, than is a large 
original variety in the kinds of atoms. Indefinite variety in the 
so-called " natures " and the performances of things, and a 
sort of unity to the one " Nature " which they combine to 
constitute, are both facts of our cognitive experience. And 
if we combine into one grouping of our conceptions the 
characteristics which are sufficient to account for both such 
facts, we have the same indescribable wealth to the content of 
the result, whether it be called a physical or a chemical 
hypothesis of matter. 

Considerations like those just discussed have led a recent 
writer * to maintain, " Not only do the atoms seem instinct 
with a desire for life, and the inorganic ever show a tendency 
to run into the organic, but each atom is a life ; and life in 
its rudiment is a property of all matter." But the same 
writer goes on to say : " The life principle, varying only in. 
degree, is omnipresent. There is but one indivisible and 
absolute Omniscience and Intelligence, and this thrills through 
every atom of the whole Cosmos. . . . This may be called the 
poet's view, but it is forced upon us as the highest general- 
ization of modern science." Such utterances, however, 
whether they come from the poet or from the man of science, 
have plainly raised the ordinary conception of physics and 
chemistry to a far higher sphere of application. We shall 
therefore return to this conception again under the terms 
Nature and Spirit. 

The properties of so-called matter, whether conceived 
of in physical terms such as " mass," " energy," " inertia," 
" action and reaction," etc., or in chemical terms that de- 
scribe some seventy different kinds of elements, and an 
indefinite variety of their combinations and separations under 

1 Quoted from an article on "The Joys and Sorrows of the Atom," hy Dr. 
G. E. Bailey. The Humanitarian, London, Oct. 1898. 



MATTER 44 i 

laws :: elective affinity, are becoming more mysterious and 
amazing as man's study of individual things becomes more 
minute and more profound. Modern science has rendered 
nature, not less but far more mysterious and incomprehen- 
sible from the merely physico-chemical point of view. It La 
Dot my mind, with its sens :.:::::. reeling, thinking, willing, 
that is for itself most fundamentally mysterious. It is not 
psy ihology which is chiefly breaking down with its ancient 
Bonceptions and its alleged explanations. It is what we are 
pleased to call - matter " that constitutes the all-engulfing 
mystery. It is physics and chemistry and biology which 
are put to the stretch to make their understand* \ keep pace 
with fcheii /nervations and their discoveries of tacts. 

Indeed.it is no longer f issible to maintain that the physico- 
chemical conception of matter — in the old-fashioned form 
of this conception — will begin :: cover man's enlarging 
experiences with the system of non-selves, with the world 
;: :kings. Old-fashioned matter. e~en when dressed :v: 
with newly discovered physical and chemical clothing, is no 
longer an all-sufficient entity. A new claimant for our 
Dished devotion has already appeared. An entity called 
-ether''* must also be invoked by the pious devotee of the 
realism of the modern physical and chemical sciences. 
And how intoxicating to the brain of the enthusiastic wor- 
shipper is this new entity \ 

Although the conception of •• ordinary matter.'" formerly- 
regarded as u orate and inanimate." has been enriched and 
enlivened so as to make it unrecognizable, there still seems 
need of other properties and potencies to : :e ascribed to the 
jrsal Substrate. Things — that is tc say — are so numer- 
ous, so variable, so seemingly capricious, s: profoundly myste- 
- in their origins, qualities, and ways of behavior and of 
development, that " matter " and ~ ether" must form a joint 
stock partnership to own them all. In general the more 
simple the constitution of your universal substrate becomes, 



448 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the more complicated become the explanations, whose entire 
weight must be thrown upon the forces, motions, and laws 
of this substrate. But even the boundless imagination de- 
manded by the discoveries of modern chemistry and modern 
molecular physics does not appear to suffice, if it be allowed 
only one subject, or permanent and unchanging base. Ether 
is introduced as a new Being of things, because matter can- 
not endure such strain. A single proprietor will no longer 
do ; a syndicate of Matter, Force, and Ether must control the 
" output " of the World. 

Now, we have already said that the most fundamental and 
unchangeable characteristic of " ordinary " matter is its 
mass. But, perhaps, ether has no appreciable mass, or even 
no mass at all. Is it then no matter ? or, is ether a new, 
strange kind of matter which has somehow managed to 
dispense with the most important characteristic of its com- 
panion substrate of all physical phenomena ? Shall we then 
call it entity, or energy, or spirit, — if it be not matter ? 
How does ether manage to unite in itself such wonderful, 
contrary characteristics as an almost, if not quite imponder- 
able tenuity and an enormous elasticity ? How does ether 
manage to correlate itself so completely with matter as to 
preserve the principle of the conservation of energy between 
the moving masses or molecules of matter and the ethereal 
energy of light, electricity, and magnetism ? Is its constitution 
that of a fluid continuum ; or is ether, too, composed of atoms ? 
If its atomic structure be denied, we may go on to ask, in the 
name of Professor Tyndall, whether the " imagination will 
accept a vibrating multiple proportion — ■ a numerical ratio in 
a state of oscillation." To this question we may give, or not, 
his answer : " The scientific imagination demands as the ori- 
gin and cause of a series of ether waves a particle of vibrat- 
ing matter quite as definite, though it may be excessively 
minute, r as that which gives origin to a musical sound." 1 

1 See "Fragments of Science " (Am. ed.), p. 431. 



MATTER 449 

Small wonder, if its most intimate friends should now feel 
obliged to address it in terms similar to those in which Faust 
spoke of that Unknowable One whom men ignorantly worship 
as God. 

tl Who dares express him ? 

The All-enf older, ~? 
The All-upholder, 
Enfolds, upholds He not 
Thee, me, Himself ? " 

With the scientific answers which will be given to these 
questions by the improved physico-chemical theory of the 
world, metaphysics is, of course, interested, but not at all 
vitally concerned. It can only discover under the term 
" ether," a repetition and new grouping of the same con- 
ceptions as those with which the discussion of the categories 
has already made us familiar. Matter and ether, or ethereal 
matter, or material ether, it matters not which. The Ground 
of the World of things with which man's growing cognitive 
experience makes him familiar must include all the neces- 
sary principles of change, differentiation, and development, 
as well as of that persistency in bulk and in energy on which 
scientific physics is wont to build. If science continues 
to use the term matter to group together all these concep- 
tions, it must at the worst be intelligently honest in recog- 
nizing what it has done. It has thus only made the Substrate 
of material things more and more completely Self-like. It has 
thus only equipped this common substrate with more and more 
of spiritual properties. It has thus only indulged to greater 
lengths, and in higher regions, although in the name of 
science, the mind's necessary tendency, or rather, its instinc- 
tive and inevitable necessity to be " anthropomorphic." And 
finally, we may end by deifying Matter. In this way the 
intellectual processes pursued and the end attained are 
largely similar ; the practical and emotional effects may be 

29 



450 A THEORY OF REALITY 

almost identical ; but the word which marks the final sta- 
dium is certainly not so appropriate, or so rational, as the 
old-fashioned word, God. 

An enthusiastic advocate l of the all-sufficient reality of 
that complex abstraction which has been discussed in this 
chapter maintains that, in very truth matter is not the 
" empty thing," the collection of " negative attributes," which 
it is customarily supposed to be. Instead of being dead, it is 
" full of most active life ; " instead of being shapeless, form 
is its " inseparable attribute ; " instead of being crude, it is 
" infinitely delicate " (not simply, it would seem, in a quanti- 
tative way, but aesthetically so) ; instead of being worthless, 
it is " of the highest importance " (naturally enough, since It 
includes everything worthiest as well as most worthless) ; 
instead of being senseless, spiritless, or thoughtless, it is 
" capable of the highest evolution of thought," etc. All this 
is It. And we will call it " Matter ; " and the song to be 
sung in its praise shall be : — 

" 1st dem nicht, was ihr Materie nennt, 
Der Welt urkraftig Element, 
Aus dem, was immer lebt und ivebt, 
Empor zu Licht und Bewegung strebt ? " 

In the Second Book of that strange mystical writing, Pistis 
Sophia, " Andrew questioneth Jesus how men in bodies of 
matter can inherit the kingdom of light." The reply he 
obtained is as follows : " Know ye not, and do ye not under- 
stand that ye are all angels, all archangels, gods and lords, 
all rulers, all the great invisibles, all those of the midst, 
those of every region of them that are on the right, all the 
great ones of the emanations of the light with all their glory ; 
that ye are all, of yourselves and in yourselves in turn, from 
one mass, and one matter and one substance ? Ye are all from 
the same mixture." 

He who understands this mystery, we are assured by Pistis 

1 See Biichner, "Force and Matter" (Eng. trans.), p. 55. 



MATTER 451 

Sophia, understands all mysteries. ;i That mystery knoweth 
why the twelve immovables rent themselves asunder, and 
why they were established with all their orders, and why 
they emanated from the parentless. 

" That mystery knoweth why the super-depths rent them- 
selves asunder, and why they set themselves in one order, 
and why they emanated from the parentless. 

"That mystery knoweth why all the indestructibles in their 
twelve orders rent themselves asunder, and why they were 
set in a single order, emanating one after the other, and why 
they were divided and formed separate orders, being also 
uncontainable impassables, and why they emanated from the 
parentless." 

Extremes meet ; and, not infrequently we find the expla- 
nation of the world offered by the theory of a non-spiritual 
and impersonal Substance differing in its metaphysics in no 
fundamental way from that offered by the most extravagant 
declaration of religious Gnosticism. But, as Lotze has well 
reminded us, it is not the business of philosophy to construct 
the world but to understand it, as it is given to us in our actual 
experience. And neither the device of a self-differentiating 
Matter that has no Spiritual Being, as its very essence, so to 
speak, nor the abstraction of an unrelated and wholly uncog- 
nizable Deity will serve either science or philosophy as a 
satisfactory principle of explanation. But the defects of both 
will become even more obvious as we pass on to the consider- 
ations of the next chapter. 



CHAPTER XVII 

NATURE AND SPIRIT 

When the attempt is made to explain the totality of man's 
experience with the world of things, there are two kinds of 
this experience which make the word " Matter " seem es- 
pecially inappropriate to summarize the required explanatory 
principles. These two comprise all that we are accustomed 
to group together under the terms, Life and History. Both 
of these terms are somewhat vague in their content ; and they 
are undoubtedly meant to be comprehensive in respect of the 
ranges of knowledge and conjecture over which they extend. 
Nor should it be forgotten that, however much we may capi- 
talize, emphasize, and personify them, the terms remain, after 
all, abstractions — themselves composed of many less highly 
abstract conceptions, that serve, each one, to cover a large 
field of phenomena. 

Neither Life nor History can, strictly speaking, effect or 
explain anything. In this respect they are like the terms 
Being, Force, Law, etc. It is only when " Being " is no 
longer pure, or mere concept of existence, but is recognized 
as a particular self-active will, sustaining manifold ideal rela- 
tions of reciprocal dependence to other wills, that we recog- 
nize the presence, in concrete form, of actual existence. So, 
too, is it only as Force is an active relationship, whose uni- 
versal type is the forth-putting of this same being which is 
consciously known to the Self as its own will, that the differ- 
ent forms of so-called force accomplish or account for any- 
thing in reality. Thus the conception of a " unity of forces " 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 453 

becomes identical with that of a principle which controls, and 
makes systematic by directing toward adopted ends, an in- 
definite number of such active relationships. In like manner, 
to explain the phenomena of life and of history, we must 
appeal to realities that have the capacity of entering into all 
the active relationships which it is intended to cover by these 
terms. 

There are good reasons, therefore, why there has always 
been hesitation before the claim that " Matter " — of itself, as 
it were — can live and undergo an historical development. 
The real Being which effects the purposes of a World-Ground, 
must include an explanation of the phenomena offered to 
observation by the system of living beings, and by the devel- 
opment of living beings through a complication of reactions, 
one upon another and on the basis of their physical environ- 
ment during countless ages of time. Let it be granted, then, 
that matter seems to be a good term — even mere matter, or 
" brute, inanimate matter" — to summarize the forces and 
laws needed for the physical composition and behavior of the 
planets, and for the combination and separation of molecules 
and atoms under the laws of cohesion and chemical affinity. 
But the phenomena which men group together under the 
words, life and history, appear — at least at first — of too 
complicated order, and mysterious genesis, and uncertain 
character, to be assigned to this lower principle alone. And 
yet these phenomena cannot be separated from their relation 
to the phenomena with which physics and chemistry deal. 
The world is one, we are continually reminded, in some valid 
and suggestive meaning of the conception of unity. Living- 
beings, from those lowest forms which it requires refined 
instrumentation to distinguish from " brute, inanimate mat- 
ter," to the highest and most spiritual of human forms, are 
themselves composed of material elements. Their thermo- 
dynamics, and the electrical and magnetic doctrines of their 
behavior, are not essentially different from the physical science 



454 A THEORY OF REALITY 

of all material masses and molecules. Physiological chemistry 
is still, in good faith and in the full meaning of the word, a 
branch of chemical science. And doubtless the protagon in 
the brain of Aristotle or of the Apostle Paul would have ana- 
lyzed into something like C 160 H 308 N 5 P O35. 

There is, then, a depth of mystery in the constitution and 
behavior of living things, and a significance of tendencies, 
drifts, and strivings toward some far-off goal, in the history 
of living beings and, especially, of human beings, which makes 
the boldest advocate of the sufficiency of physical substances 
and forces inclined to seek another term for his enlarging 
conceptions. Such search is rewarded, with at least a tem- 
porary satisfaction, by adopting certain uses of the word 
" Nature." This word stands better for that which has life in 
itself. And when the term is endowed with a sufficiency of 
at least quasi-personal attributes, and spelled with a capital 
letter, it inflames and elevates the imagination, and soothes 
the remonstrances which a philosophy that ends in pure ab- 
stractions, or in merely figurate conceptions, is apt to call 
forth. Our u dame Nature " — beldame, in both the older 
and the newer meaning of this compound — may even be- 
times be called good ; although she is always in fact " red 
in tooth and claw." Nature is thus manifestly conceived of 
as having the constitution of a Self ; but why should the 
anthropomorphism involved in this conception, which is as 
obvious as anything of the kind can possibly be, seem less 
unsatisfactory than that of the conception which religion is 
accustomed to accept ? 

He who knows Nature and her ways, knows all that really is 
subject of scientific investigation. She is the " uncreated and 
indestructible, alone, complete, immovable, and without end ; " 
and to have a full acquaintance with her is to " know the origin 
of all things on high, and all the signs in the sky, and the 
resplendent works of the Sun's clear torch, and whence they 
arose." But not only this : " For she rules over all painful 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 455 

birth and all begetting, driving the female to the embrace of 
the male, and the male to that of the female." ..." Does 
Parmenides " (in words like the foregoing) " refer to the 
world of sense or to the world of ideas, to concrete existence or 
to abstract being ; to matter or to spirit ? " Doubtless the cor- 
rect historical answer to this inquiry would be somewhat as 
follows : Parmenides, like his predecessors and contempora- 
ries, did not make the distinctions involved in the precise 
answer to questions like these. 1 And yet in all these earlier 
utterances of philosophy, as in all attempts that have ever 
been made or that can ever be made by philosophy, the germs 
of the same fundamental and necessary distinctions appear. 
For Being — in totality and as such — is contemplated, de- 
scribed, and understood from two points of view, the internal 
and the external. This is true of the work both of science and 
of philosophy. 

It is only when taken together as an Absolute Whole that 
Reality can be spoken of as uncreated, indestructible, perfect, 
and eternal. But in order to be comprehended as thus per- 
fect and eternal, this Absolute Whole was virtually regarded 
by Parmenides and the early Greek philosophers, both as Sub- 
ject and as object, as Maker and system of things made. As 
itself uncreated, It creates ; as itself indestructible, It destroys 
and brings into being the particular existences. It is itself 
perfect ; but things are fragments, or parts, or individual 
products, of It ; and its eternity is maintained as a permanent 
Principle somehow presiding over and controlling the cease- 
lessly actual flux of particular things and souls. The individ- 
ual males and females seek each other's embrace ; and so the 
multiform species of living beings continue in existence. 
But She, who is the Mother of all, " rules over" and " drives" 
together these individual children of her own womb. 

The same necessity to which early Greek philosophy 
responded in so naive and unconscious fashion has shaped 

1 See Burnet, " Early Greek Philosophy," p. 178 f. 



456 A THEORY OF REALITY 

into more definite forms the modern scientific and philosophi- 
cal conceptions. Because matter alone does not seem rich 
enough in content, or potent and varied enough in its con- 
cealed resources, or sufficiently capable of apprehending and 
holding steadily to the required ideals, therefore men have 
chosen " Nature " as the more genial, plastic, and suitable 
term. In her, and through her, and by her, and for her ends, 
all particular things exist, including the lives and the his- 
tory of the race of " speaking men." Let the hidden but 
potent reason for this change of words not escape us. It is 
because the latter term is more easily capable of the necessary 
personification. 

Immediately, however, the enlargement of the conception 
which the word "nature" seems to provide, in the special 
interests of an explanation for the interconnected phenomena 
of life and of history, requires the old distinctions to be made 
anew. The Absolute Whole divides itself again into two 
parts. These parts are not, indeed, separate and distinct 
halves of a total sphere ; nor can they be kept asunder so as 
to remain independent of each other for their more complete 
significance and their more effective action. The rather are 
they two interdependent aspects of the same totality as seen 
from two equally necessary points of view. These points 
of view are the more internal and subjective, and the 
more external and objective. Nature, as an Absolute Whole, 
becomes two-fold ; it is no longer simply nature as the 
common breeding-place of life, but as herself a Universal 
Life. Her being is no longer looked upon as the undifferen- 
tiated medium or soil in which all development takes place. 
She is herself the Ground — the inner principle of develop- 
ment. Nature is no longer a system of things already formed, 
or considered from the outside as a mere collection of data 
arranged in a series, in unending time. She is a Force, for- 
mative and progressive according to ideas. Like the total 
Being of the Greek philosopher, she is both Subject and 



NATUEE AND SPIRIT 45T 

objects, Maker and things made. Nature has become divided 
in some sort against herself ; her total Being includes natura 
naturata and natura naturans. 

Such pressure brought, so to speak, upon the fruitful womb 
of nature in the effort to make her bring forth the Absolute 
only results in the birth of another pair of conceptions allied 
to those already discussed. For Nature, when considered as 
an Absolute Whole, must be the cause, not only of nature 
considered as the system of material things, but of spirits as 
well. And now Nature and Spirit serve to summarize two 
groups of conceptions under which, in their co-operative 
influence, all scientific and philosophical explanations fall. 
Nature in the large, as an eternal but unspiritual force, pro- 
duces by her supremest effort something spiritual, or rather 
an indefinite number of spirits ; and these spiritual beings 
then, in some sort, come to supplement her in her work of 
evolving life and of driving man along his course in history. 
For who can deny that man, the most spiritual of all the 
beings of which we have any immediate and verifiable expe- 
rience, if not the only species of being entitled to be called 
" a spirit," is himself a product of nature as soon as the 
latter is conceived of as an Absolute Whole ? 

When, then, our theory of reality speaks of " nature and 
spirit," it acknowledges, as belonging to the system of real 
existences, two species of beings which it is necessary to 
assume as different and yet somehow co-operative in order to 
account for the totality of man's cognitive experience. But 
nature and spirit, in the lower meanings of these two words, 
are both products of Nature, in the larger and higher mean- 
ing of the one word. Therefore, natural science proceeds to 
spell this word with a capital, and to attribute to it all life 
and all history, including human life and human history. 
But religion has the surer instinct and the better showing 
of reason when it seizes upon the other word and, spelling 
it with a capital, exalts it to the position of the Absolute. 



458 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Yet if Spirit itself be conceived of as an abstraction, it is no 
better fitted than its humbler sister to serve as the explana- 
tory principle of our experience with ourselves and with 
things. There are spirits ; and there exists a community 
of spirits. This is the race of men ; and history is, in a 
measure, of their making. But let no one speak of " Spirit," 
spelling it with a capital as though its mere use in the singu- 
lar number indicated any corresponding Unity of Reality. 
To violate this injunction is to talk the language of poetry 
or of religious myth, and not that of science or philosophy. 1 

The view which — to speak truth of it — denies the effi- 
ciency and value of Spirit as a unifying, explanatory prin- 
ciple, although making use of the term, is quite the opposite 
of that which we have been advocating. Our view compels 
us to turn the whole thing " face-about," as it were. For in 
our view, the one fundamental reality, the actual Being whose 

1 In his chapter discussing the general conception of "collective spirit" 
( Gesammtgeist) Wundt justly concludes that this conception, in order to gain 
clearness, must avail itself of one of two auxiliary conceptions ; these are the con- 
ceptions of " organism " and of " personality." The first of these undergoes essen- 
tial changes when we attempt to apply it in a collective way ; for the so-called 
" collective organism " has an unlimited capacity for self-organization and transfor- 
mation which is unlike anything we find belonging to the individual living body. 
But the second of these conceptions can have its actualization only in society, or 
in the State, which is a collection of personalities rather than a collective Per- 
sonality. The latter, therefore, is not capable of actualization. Hence it would 
appear that nothing in reality can exist which answers to the term, One Abso- 
lute or Infinite Spirit, other than the — " perhaps unattainable " — ideal of a 
quasi-organic union of humanity, under ethical principles, into the State. But 
this, it will be seen, is precisely the opposite of that procedure which we have 
followed, — namely, of translating the abstract and otherwise unintelligible 
terms of philosophy into concrete and indubitable experiences. 

In his " Science and Christian Tradition Essays" (p. 38 f. and note on p. 39), 
Professor Huxley asserts, in the first place, that the " principle of scientific Nat- 
uralism does not lead to the denial of the existence of any Supernature ; but 
simply to the denial of the evidence adduced in favor of this or that extant form 
of Supernaturalism." He then immediately explains : " I employ the words 
' Supernature ' and ' Supernatural ' in their popular senses. For myself, I am 
bound to say that the term ' Nature ' covers the totality of that which is. The 
world of psychical phenomena appears to me as much a part of ' Nature ' as the 
world of physical phenomena; and I am unable to perceive any justification for 
cutting the Universe into two halves, one natural and one supernatural." 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 459 

characteristics are recognized by the categories, whose work 
is both nature considered as the system of material things 
and also all the spirits of men considered in their histori- 
cal development, is the Absolute Self. And the innermost 
essence of such an Absolute Self is Spirit. From Spirit, 
then, come nature and all spirits ; and in dependence on this 
Spirit they live and develop. And the proof of this view lies 
in the fact that to rely on nature as a unifying principle, it 
is necessary to include in our conception of nature the char- 
acteristics of a spiritual life. For a Nature which were not 
tantamount to Infinite Spirit could not be considered as an 
Absolute Whole — u uncreate, perfect, and eternal." It is 
this Spirit which — 

" Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
Spreads undivided, operates unspent." 

It cannot be too carefully noticed at this point what is the 
exact claim made for this doctrine of the spiritual nature of all 
reality. It is not the claim of a proof, or series of inferences, 
which attempts to make its way along the path of an infinite 
regresms. Nor is it the mere hope that, starting with the con- 
ception of Nature, whether as a collection of brute and in- 
animate masses and bits of matter, or as a system of living 
and developing beings, one may legitimately reach backward 
to the existence of Spirit as their ultimate source and final 
ground. Our attempt is not directed toward showing 
the necessity of positing spirit and nature, — two beings 
which divide all space between themselves, and whose priority 
of residence and jurisdiction must be settled on the basis of 
considerations somewhat foreign to the character of both. 
The proof we offer is rather the discovery, reached by reflec- 
tive thinking upon the categories, that the special grouping of 
these categories under the term " nature " does not change the 
real character of the conceptions themselves. These concep- 
tions are all, when applied to things, the externally projected 



460 A THEORY OF REALITY 

predicates of selfhood as known in the unfolding experience 
of the individual man and of the race. So that the progress 
of the argument — if the course of such reflection is to be 
called an " argument " at all — is rather inward than backward. 
And, indeed, the preceding centuries of talk about a 
regressus as the way in which the plain man's consciousness^ 
or the observations of science, or the speculation of philosophy, 
reaches from the natural system of things to the spirit that 
is in them, is in violation both of fact and of sound reason as 
well. There is not, and there never has been, any " brute 
inanimate " matter ; there is not now, and there never has 
been, any system of natural objects bare or devoid of indwell- 
ing Spirit. Matter, considered as wholly without the charac- 
teristics of selfhood, is, as yet, not matter ; it is nothing, and 
can do nothing ; it is nought ; it is not. And when we sup- 
plant this lower conception by the more vital, effective, and 
universal term, Nature, we only acknowledge in a not less 
impressive way the same essential truth. This term, indeed, 
serves the great purpose better than does matter ; it is a richer 
and more satisfactory grouping of the necessary conceptions^ 
because it is the more obvious and richly peisonal and 
spiritual term. To get from Nature to Spirit, then, we 
have only to get more deeply into nature. For whenever 
either mythology, or science, or philosophy makes due 
recognition of the extent and potency of this Absolute Whole, 
as an explaining principle for what is otherwise particular and 
isolated, it only expresses the universal insight of man's 
mind into the real character of the world of things and of 
spirits. Except in so far as it is known by having additional 
characteristics of Spirit, Nature is as " brute and inanimate " 
as was the old-fashioned but now extinct conception of matter. In 
a word, Nature, too, is nothing, and can do nothing, without 
Spirit ; and only in so far as it is essentially spiritual, can 
it be known as the principle which sums-up and embraces 
all particular realities and all actual events. 



NATURE AXD SPIRIT 461 

It is customarily supposed that the modern discoveries in 
the chemistry and physiology of living organisms, in the 
development of the living individual, and in the evolution of 
living forms, modify the foregoing metaphysical conclusions. 
This supposition is to a certain extent true. But the modifi- 
cation is in the direction of enforcing the essential truth of 
the same conclusions, while changing somewhat the points of 
view assumed in establishing them. Modern chemical and 
biological science does nothing in the direction of contra- 
dicting or abolishing these fundamental conceptions. The 
chemical, biological, and evolutionary points of view for the 
phenomena called " vital " only reveal the spiritual character 
of natural objects in a new and most impressive way. For 
they show us under what an amazing variety of interconnected 
forms this Absolute Whole is ceaselessly displaying its genetic 
and architectonic energies. But every new display of those 
forms of force which lay the origins and determine the 
developments of things raises the same unchanging and fun- 
damental ontological problems. How can Nature be con- 
ceived of as capable of accomplishing this ? Only after the 
analogy of the Self-active Being that puts forth its will in 
many directions, all of which are controlled by immanent 
ideas and designed for the realization of ideal ends. 

The controversy which has now raged for some time over 
the propriety of the term " vital force " is not without its 
suggestions and its lessons, in this connection. Much of this 
controversy has done little credit to the clear thinking of 
either of the contending parties. As though the facts 
could be interpreted or explained without resort to some such 
conceptions as are voiced by this now discarded term! As 
though, on the contrary, to secure the use of the term would, 
of itself, either assist in scientific explanation or decide men 
as to their choice between two diverse systems of meta- 
physics and theology ! God is not dethroned, if this abstract 
term be discredited and cast out of the catalogue of biologists. 



462 A THEORY OF REALITY 

God is not established and the more truly worshipped, if the 
ancient phrases and formulas are preserved after they have 
lost their ancient significance. 

The real progress of biological science has been in the way 
of attaining clearer and more precise knowledge concerning 
the characteristics of all so-called living bodies, and of the 
conditions under which they arise, develop, and succeed each 
other in countless generations. On these main points our 
knowledge, although, like all human knowledge, shading off 
into conjecture as the outlook into time runs either back- 
ward or forward, is now in a comparatively satisfactory state. 
So far as the testimony of our actual experience reaches, those 
physical existences which we call alive can do certain things 
which non-living beings cannot do. They can grow, can mul- 
tiply themselves after their own kind, and can move — at 
least their constituent molecules, if not their entire bodies — as 
from what in our ignorance we are obliged to call an u internal 
impulse." Matter, when it is " endowed with life" as we 
figuratively say, becomes metabolic, reproductive, and capable 
of automatic, or internally originating, movements. As to their 
origin, furthermore, these so-called living beings are at 
present never known to us to begin to exist, except in depend- 
ence upon the reproductive process. Whatever biologists may 
be pleased to conjecture respecting occurrences in some far-off: 
time, and under greatly changed conditions, so far as we now 
know, living beings come only from pre-existing living beings. 
Nature, the Mother of all, when she conceives and brings forth 
a living child, demands as her present unvarying rule that 
this production shall be through some other living child of 
hers. This is as true of the cell, the unit of life, as it is of 
the most complex and highly developed organism. 

How, then, shall that metaphysical way of speaking which, 
in spite of all protests to the contrary, the particular sciences 
are forever compelled by the very constitution of the human 
mind to employ, describe and explain the phenomena of 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 463 

life ? Physics is permitted to speak of the " forces " of gravi- 
tation, of cohesion, etc.. as belonging to all masses of matter 
and as explanatory of the behavior 01 masses under manifold 
relations. It also theorizes about forces of light, of electricity, 
and of magnetism as residing in the ether, and through their 
residence therein effecting inany subtle changes in tangible and 
visible things. Chemistry, in its turn, deals with a new set of 
genetic and architectonic forces : nor does it hesitate to 
designate these forces by appropriate names. But what do 
the physical and chemical sciences really mean by this, their 
permissit le mc de of st eech ': Surely not that there are separate 
entities, to be called by the names of these different forms of 
the activity of masses, molecules, and atoms, which entities are. 
however, also to be thought of as actually coordinated under 
one general head. All the so-called physico-chemical forces 
are only the ways of the reciprocally determining, active 
relationships which the different members of the system of 
real mat-rial things actually maintain. When. then, we come 
to new ways of this omnipresent, active self-relating of Nature, 
in the case of living beings. — as wholly -new" as any of 
these which chemistry is compelled to add to the forces known 
\\>y physics, or as the physics of light and electricity is 
compelled to add to the physics of material masses. — why 
should we not indulge ourselves in the same helpful figures of 
speech I The masses, the molecules, the atoms of the living 
things. — or whatever siz^s of the material entity you choose 
to make the seat of the necessary forces. — are certainly 
behaving in ways quite beyond the known habits and capacities 
of non-living things. Here. then, is a quite new display of the 
genetic and architectonic power of Nature. Our good Dame 
ifi bringing to pas- something rather original in her perpetual 
jconomies. She — "the uncreate and eternal" — is now 
teeming with products that can. what hitherto her products 
coidil not. These new creations of hers can. of themselves. 
create: and what they create can grow; and as they grow. 



464 " A THEORY OF REALITY 

they can (like every amoeba) not simply be moved from with- 
out, but they can move as by a " will of their own." 

Let biological science, then, not be disturbed if it is found 
convenient to speak of " vital force," as covering that special 
display of genetic and architectonic energies which Nature 
makes in the case of all living beings. Or rather, it would 
seem more fitting to speak of vital forces ; such as, for example, 
the metabolic, the reproductive, and the automatic. Some 
theory of " Vitalism," or its equivalent, will always be a 
necessity for biological science. 1 

But at once it is objected that this manner of speech does 
violence to, or shows disrespect toward, the dignity of the all- 
powerful and god-like atoms. For life, we are reminded, is 
only a peculiar concurrence in the germ followed by a course 
of peculiar aggregations, segregations, etc., affecting those 
atoms which constitute the organism. What, however, does 
such an objection really accomplish ; or, in case the objection 
be removed or disregarded, what has really been gained ? The 
facts certainly remain the same. A sufficient explanation must 
somehow be found for the real unities and for the actual 
active relationships, attained and maintained. A vast variety 
of correlated forces, belonging to one substance, called Matter 
or Nature, comprises the metaphysical outfit of the chemico- 
physical sciences. Is not, in reality, each one of these forces — 
gravitation, for example — only a peculiar way in which the 
masses, molecules, and atoms of matter behave toward each 
other, under certain definite circumstances ? But the truth of 

1 Nothing is more significant of the rational necessity for such a metaphysi- 
cal conception than the present tendency of biology to return from its position of 
scorn toward all theories of "vital force," or "vital energies," to anew and 
improved statement of the same conception. For example, a recent writer, after 
declaring that "the life principle, varying only in degree, is omnipresent" 
. . . and that " the elixir of life lurks in every mineral, as well as in every flower 
and animal throughout the universe ; it is the ultimate essence of everything 
on its way to higher evolution," goes on to affirm : " This may be called the 
poet's view, but it is forced upon us as also the highest generalization of modern 
science." 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 465 

all such philosophical interpretation as this remains the same 
throughout all forms of positive science. And why should 
biology alone be denied its sacred metaphysical rights and 
privileges ? 

TVe insist, then, upon the propriety of continuing that con- 
venient but figurative metaphysics which speaks of i; vital 
forces " as assisting in the accomplishment of the phenomena 
of living beings.. These living beings are, because they are 
material and have mass, necessarily subject to all the forces 
which physics recognizes as working in its peculiar domain. 
Because they are composed of molecules which have a compli- 
cated chemical constitution, and are built up under conditions 
which favor or discourage more or less well-known chemical 
combinations, they are also to be regarded as subject to chemi- 
cal forces. But because these same living beings do actually 
achieve new forms of synthesis and architectonic activity, 
they may also properly be regarded as displaying a new 
kind of so-called " forces." This is only another way of say- 
ing that such realities have the active properties summed 
up under such words as "metabolism," " reproductivity," and 
automatism." 

If now it is urged that the chemical laboratory can simulate, 
or even perfectly reproduce, certain of the simpler organic 
compounds : and that a few of the most hopeful among the 
chemists of to-day confidently look forward to the time when 
the chemical laboratory will be able to reproduce all the 
organic compounds, or even to manufacture "protoplasm." the 
reply to such claims and such hopes is not difficult. Very 
well, but this does not in the least alter the case. Chemical 
science will thus serve biological science, only as it learns how 
to avail itself of the so-called forces of Nature as they are 
displayed, under certain conditions, in a definite way : but the 
variety, the wonderful character, the metaphysical implica- 
tions, of this her display of so-called forces will remain 
unchanged. And the higher powers of the microscope are 

30 



466 A THEORY OF REALITY 

daily making more wonderful the atomic mechanism of the 
protoplasmic unit, the living cell. 

Suppose it to be further urged that the phenomena of life 
may all be regarded as special forms of the chemical ener- 
gies of the atoms, dependent only upon their being brought 
together in peculiar quantitative combinations, under definite 
fixed conditions. Very well ; but this, too, if granted, does 
not essentially alter the case. For metaphysics does not aim 
to deprive the sciences of physics, chemistry, and biology, of 
their Substrate — whether they wish to take it in mass, or as 
divisible into molecules and atoms. Metaphysics aims to in- 
terpret into the ultimate terms of man's cognitive experience 
all the conceptions involved in the scientific assumptions of 
a " substrate," moved by " force," and obeying " law," and 
entering into manifold forms of mutually determined 
" relation," etc. 

It will, however, be granted by way of comity between 
metaphysics and these sciences — we suppose — that single 
atoms and molecules cannot produce the phenomena which 
living beings display. For these phenomena — to return to 
our first point of view — show the characteristics of forms of 
energies that are genetic and architectonic to a high degree. 
Countless multitudes of atoms and molecules, with a marvel- 
lously great variety of properties belonging to their various 
kinds, are somehow, in fact, made to cooperate to the building 
of a composite substrate whose performances answer to specific 
ideas. Pack all the forms of chemical energy that are known 
or can be imagined, into the single atoms, and all the more is 
the mind finally compelled to make an appeal to some concep- 
tion that shall actualize itself in terms of force that unites the 
single atoms in a definite and purposeful result. It is this 
compulsion which has made the use of the word " Nature " 
seem so appropriate as a title for the life-giving Mother of all 
the particular forms of life. 

The demand which seems obvious enough even when we 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 467 

consider the constitution and behavior of so-called "un- 
differentiated protoplasm," becomes irresistible under the 
weight of the facts disclosed to the more extended and recent 
view of biology. Here our minds are invited to consider re- 
flectively what is implied in the evolution of the individual and 
in the development of species. Nature must be writ large 
and conceived of as somehow presiding over the individual 
masses, molecules, and atoms, in order to conceive of her as 
evolving the individual living being and developing the 
various related forms of life. 

Under what conceptions it is necessary to bring the history 
of the individual living being has been made the repeated 
subject of discussion in the previous chapters of this work. 
Such a history is itself the very type of all human conceptions 
of a " Becoming," which arises in, and is carried forward by, 
a fortunate combination of genetic and architectonic forces, 
and which conforms in reality to human ideas of form, law, 
and final purpose. Such a history is the very idea of develop- 
ment realized. This position explains not only the signifi- 
cance of those naive expressions which fall from the plain 
man's consciousness as he observes, or listens to, the mar- 
vellous story ; it also interprets the true meaning — however 
concealed — of all the language which biology itself employs. 

"If" says Haeckel, 1 "the formative power of the formless 
protoplasm calls forth our highest admiration among the re- 
markable Polythalamia, this is further increased when we 
turn to the closely allied Radiolaria. In these most interest- 
ing primal beings we meet with the greatest variety of beauti- 
ful and strange forms that can be found in the organic 
world." . . . " We have as yet no conception of the signifi- 
cance of their varied, strange, and exquisite forms, nor of the 
way in which they are shaped by the formless protoplasm of 
the Radiolaria." It is indeed worthy of " highest admiration " 
to see the "formative power" of that which is itself " form- 

1 See his "Realm of the Protista," pp. 38 and 46. 



468 A THEORY OF REALITY 

less," shape those molecules of matter on which it can lay its 
grasp, into such a variety of " strange and exquisite " forms. 
And this sesthetical feeling which is aroused in the observer, 
because displayed in the thing observed, is one of many sure 
signs of a fundamental kinship between the two. In fact, 
however, as the results of the previous discussion of the 
ideas of form, law, and final purpose have clearly shown, the 
protoplasm out of which Polythalamia and Radiolaria are 
said to come, is only relatively formless. Their so-called 
protoplasm, like every other living being, is already both 
formed and formative ; it is both the product and the possessor 
of the genetic and architectonic forces which all living beings 
display. Furthermore, when Haeckel confesses ignorance of 
the significance, and of the manner of that shaping process 
which results in the varied and exquisitely formed coming out 
of the formless, he only emphasizes the universal conviction of 
every one intelligently acquainted with natural objects. All 
such forms — it is assumed — have some significance, however 
this significance may be hidden from us ; and the manner of 
nature's shaping of her forms is in accordance with immanent 
ideas. But to imply this is to give to universal Nature, in so 
far as she gets expression in the particular nature of individ- 
uals, or in the variation within limits of the species, the 
characteristics of self-hood. The relatively formless somehow 
— God knows how, and man may some day know — signifi- 
cantly shapes, of itself, this variety of strange and exquisite 
forms. 

The entire Life of Nature is a ceaseless repetition of essen- 
tially the same performances, so far as the science of biology 
is concerned — but so joined together into an historic process 
that it incontestably appears as a progress toward some far- 
off goal. Looking backward, indeed, the present indefinite 
variety of forms seems to withdraw itself into the relatively 
formless ; but if this retreat of living beings be followed in 
imagination and thought until they all rest in the arms of the 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 469 

formless atoms, our conceptions of the explanatory causes 
of the natural history of living forms remain unchanged. 
The atoms are ; and their collective capacity must somehow 
serve as the u sea of activities " in which all the sources of 
life and evolution are as yet congealed. 

" A lies Leben der Natur 
1st ein Meer von Thatigkeiten ; 
Ohne East auf ihrer Spur 
Muss Du mit dem Ganzen schreiten." 

The evolution of the organism of the individual from its 
germinal condition to its completed form, through the peculiar 
and complicated reactions of the forces seated in its constit- 
uent elements upon the forces belonging to its environment, 
may be made the object of present-day observation. But the 
case is by no means the same with the development of the 
totality of living species. Precisely how the relatively form- 
less beginnings proceeded to employ the " formative forces " 
inherent in them so as to shape such a variety of " strange 
and exquisite " forms, we know far less about than we know 
about the method and significance of the procedure of the 
" formless protoplasm " of Radiolaria. For here biological 
science is studying the larger work of Nature as, through 
indefinite stretches of time, she has been using her synthetic 
and architectonic energies to produce all manner of living 
things. It is perfectly clear, however, that a wonderful 
conjoint action of all the natural forces has somehow been 
secured. For when considered as a totality the living beings 
of the world, as known to man, constitute an interconnected 
system the members of which are dependent upon each other 
in countless subtle ways ; and all of which are dependent for 
their existence, continuance, and place within the system, 
upon the cooperation of all the forces known to physics, 
chemistry, and biology as well. But the metaphysically 
important characteristics of this picture are not dependent 



470 A THEORY OF REALITY 

for their verification upon any particular form of the current 
theories of biological evolution. 

"Inheritance" and u variability " are words which cover 
certain conceptions, based on patent facts, that are necessaiy 
to every theory of the development of species. These concep- 
tions, combined with those which sum up the characteristics 
of vital forces in relation to the forces provided by the envi- 
ronment, constitute the equipment of categories which, so to 
speak, modern biology possesses ; and which it must employ in 
framing its answer to all demands for an explanation of vital 
phenomena, as displayed on the scale of Nature at large. 
These two words (inheritance and variability) summarize 
experience with the behavior of successive generations of 
living beings which stand to one another in the morphological 
and functional relations dependent upon their reproductive 
activity. " Heredity " emphasizes our knowledge that some- 
thing connected with the transmitted germs determines a 
likeness to the organism from which these germs come. 
" Variability " emphasizes our knowledge that somehow, 
whether through minute differences in the germs themselves 
or on account of the different subsequent conditions to 
which these germs are inevitably subjected, the likeness 
between the progenitor and the descendant is never complete. 
But in order that a true and successful development of 
species may take place, both heredity and variability must 
harmoniously combine. This is to say that the forces which 
tend to the conservation of similar forms and similar func- 
tions, and which are thought of as due to the fact of repro- 
duction, must cooperate with the forces which tend to 
differentiation of forms and functions, whether these latter 
forces are thought of as attached to the act of reproduction 
or as exercised by the environment. 

It is at once clear to any one accustomed to reflect carefully 
on the significance for reality of terms current in science or 
philosophy, that we ha^e here to do with a grouping of con- 



NATURE AND SPIRIT 471 

ceptions as comprehensive as they are elastic. But it is the 
genetic and architectonic power of Nature which is emphasized 
by all these terms — all the more impressively, by splitting 
this power up into a variety of details. The facts appear, at 
first, simple enough ; from the parents come, by generation, 
organisms that are essentially like, and yet are always unlike 
in a multitude of minute particulars, and are sometimes 
strikingly unlike in one or more rather important particulars. 
As this reproductive process goes on through the ages, under 
a great variety of conditions, the different species of living 
beings succeed one another in a more or less orderly way. 
If we accept the standpoint of Darwinism, it is ' : heredity " 
which we may feel ourselves entitled to take for granted : and 
then the burden of fixing the limits and the direction of 
variability falls chiefly upon conditions external to the 
organism. But if we accept the more modern and seemingly 
more tenable view, it is " variability " which should be 
assumed as " the expression of the fundamental energy of 
the organism ; " and " heredity is the expression of the 
acquired adjustment of the organism to the conditions of its 
existence." 1 Inheritance then becomes an acquired character- 
istic ; but variability is the primary genetic phenomenon of all 
organisms. 

In a word, then, Nature must put forth all her energies in a 
genetic and architectonic way, coordinating them and yet modi- 
fying their particular combinations through countless ages of 
time, if the development of interdependent but specifically de- 
termined organisms is to be attained as the result. She must 
differentiate her own Will in manifold ways : but she must 
still employ these differentiations to the attainment of specific 
ends. She must not only " drive " the males and females 
to each other's embrace : but she must shape each relatively 
formless bit of protoplasm which thus results — each impreg- 
nated germ of a living being — so as to conform with the two 

1 See Prof. H. S. "Williams, in " Seieree" for May 27. 1S9S, p. 730. 



472 A THEORY OF REALITY 

correlated principles of heredity and variability. She must 
do this through thousands and millions of years, — if we are 
to trust the calendar which modern evolution has prepared in 
her name. And these same formative forces must shape 
more and more complicated, more and more highly developed, 
organisms. The full significance of this, neither the scientific 
nor the philosophic investigator can understand ; for the 
ways of the natural formative forces are hard to discover, and 
may never be very fully known. But ignorance cannot dictate 
to knowledge the conceptions and the language which the 
scientific observer or the philosophic thinker must employ. 
All these conceptions, and all the language necessarily used to 
express them, have meaning and justification only from one 
point of view. Nature thus regarded — and so she is regarded, 
and only so can she be regarded, by natural science — is 
endowed with the fundamental characteristics of Selfhood. To 
escape from this conclusion by crying out against " anthro- 
pomorphism " is to lack the courage of humanity's most 
unalterable convictions. And when we further know what 
the inmost reality of such Selfhood is, we see that to speak of 
Spirit as a possible inference lying outside of, or behind, 
Nature, is to overlook the plainest features of our case. Not 
Nature and Spirit, but Spirit as the true and essential Being 
of so-called Nature, is what the conclusions of science and of 
philosophy alike confirm. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 

In a natural glow of enthusiasm over the successes of the 
principle of mechanism, both physicist and philosopher have 
been known to say : " Give me matter and force and I will 
construct the world.' , From long before Descartes until the 
present time this manner of world-building has seemed most 
captivating to certain minds ; — all the more captivating 
because it so readily dispenses, on the one hand, with the 
mystery which the unexplained Cosmos presents, and on the 
other hand with the need of any Mind to serve as a coordinate 
principle of explanation, by the side of Matter and Force. 
But we have already looked a little way into the wealth of 
this gift which is required in order fully to meet the demands 
of physics and of a purely physical philosophy. The world can 
be " constructed " of matter and force, only when these agents 
are first endowed with all the qualifications necessary for so 
vast constructive ability. All this the most recent advocates 
of this mechanical theory of world-building aim to cover up 
by repeating conceptions whose inadequacy has been exposed 
over and over again, in the history of reflective thinking. 
" Force," says a recent writer, " bestows life and motion on 
matter ; matter is lifeless, without any power to move or alter 
itself. Force brings about all the changes in matter that our 
senses seem to tell us of ; it is force alone that causes these, 
matter remaining ever the same." The same writer then 
thinks to furnish a lucid and sufficient account of the origin of 
life by affirming that, as soon as the physical conditions of the 



474 A THEORY OF REALITY 

earth's crust permitted it, millions of smaller masses of 
molecules established " inner relations ; " then some of them 
increased in size by " an influx of matter and force ; " and 
when later there " occurred opportunities for progress," these 
bodies " discovered for themselves a sphere of activity," etc., 
etc. 1 Thus by infinitely varied combinations and variations 
the present infinitely varied and orderly system of things, 
including man himself, arose. 

In the modest demand, thus expressed in the now celebrated 
sentence, there lurks a huge fallacy which is customarily 
unchallenged and even unperceived. " Give me the matter 
and the force, and I will build for you the world." Thus 
matter and force are brought forward as the theoretical 
cooperating factors, or constituents, of the proposed world- 
building ; but what is the part left for the " I " in the actual 
process of world-building ? Now one can scarcely think that 
any author of such a proposal means to challenge our admira- 
tion for Ms own skill as a world-builder, in the following terms : 
" Put at my disposal the sum-total of ' lifeless matter ' and 
the gross amount of the world energy ; and then you shall be 
told precisely how all particular things came to be as they all 
actually have been and are." For the Ego of this theoretical 
and purely hypothetical builder of a Cosmos out of matter and 
force, would certainly need knowledge, in order rightly to set 
about his monstrous task. His Ego as pure blind Will, or 
mere Being, could not construct a system of things. Indeed, 
nothing short of all knowledge, of omniscience, would need 
to be granted before this Ego could even tell how matter and 
force have actually built, and are still building, the world. 
Must, then, so proud a promise be understood to mean only 
this : the Omnipotent and the Omniscient One knows how 
the world was built, whether by himself or by some other, 

1 So, e. g., Herr W. Kotzauer in an article in Der Stein der Weisen, which we 
select as an illustration, not on account of its merit, but on account of the naive, 
outspoken character of its materialism. 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 475 

out of matter and force. Whatever the sentence means, 
it is necessary to add a third at least coordinate factor in 
order to explain — not to say, effect — the actual construction 
of the world ? Shall we accordingly say : " Give me matter, 
force, and ideas that correspond throughout to the reality, 
and then I will tell you how the world was built ? " Or make 
me to be an Omniscient Will, and I will build you a World ? 

Throughout the previous metaphysical discussions we have 
constantly refrained from claiming to know already, or ex- 
pecting ever to be able to discover, precisely how this actual 
infinity of things called the " Universe " came to be as it is. 
Metaphysics surely cannot give to man the valid history of 
the evolution of things ; it must learn from the sciences what 
it can about this history. But the searcher after a system of 
metaphysics is not to be deceived by a purely figurative use 
— much less by a misuse — of abstract terms. Matter and 
force are terms which, when employed in this vague, general 
way, have only the value of abstractions. They stand for that 
" crude lumpishness " which may be considered as the sub- 
stantial basis of all particular things ; and for the additional 
necessity of somehow getting this otherwise " lifeless " stuff 
to work, if a system of such things is ever to come out of it. 

In a word, every attempt to construct a world out of Matter 
and Force — however little way, or however far, such an 
attempt may go — virtually recognizes from the start the 
actuality of ideas of things. For that Being of the World, 
which is granted out of hand, must somehow come to some- 
thing definite, must go in some direction rather than another ; 
the undifferentiated IT must take on a succession of forms, 
under a variety of laws. But all this means absolutely 
nothing, unless the actuality of ideas be admitted as belong- 
ing to the essential nature of things. 

To the student of the human mind in a broad way there 
are few phenomena more interesting than the sceptical revul- 
sion, the spasm of agnostic terror, which seizes many thinkers 



476 A THEORY OF REALITY 

as they are brought to try final conclusions with a truth such 
as has been evinced in every chapter of this treatise. To 
many of the detailed applications of this central truth all 
minds readily assent. But from the truth itself — the truth, 
namely, that the world is known to be, only as it is an actuali- 
zation of the Ideal — they strenuously dissent. Let us, then, 
at this point recall that epistemological assumption which 
our theory of reality — in common with every possible 
theory of reality, whether partial and unsystematic or aim- 
ing at complete and systematic form — thought it right to 
accept. The assumption was not that all ideas are true pic- 
tures of reality ; nor was it that reality is for us, merely our 
idea. Neither was it that all reality can be known, or re- 
duced to terms of our ideas. But it was that the fundamen- 
tal forms of human cognition are the unchanging forms of 
reality — so far as reality is known or is conceivable by man. 
This assumption was no mere reaffirmation of the stand- 
point of the Kantian critique. The truth about human knowl- 
edge is not that the intellect of man constructs realities after 
its own pattern — phenomenal realities, merely; while so- 
called " things-in-themselves " remain forever unknown and 
unknowable by man. Neither is it the truth that extra-mentally 
existent realities somehow make themselves recognized by 
the mind, without consulting its nature, so to speak, and 
while remaining themselves quite foreign to the mind. But 
the truth is that all knowledge of reality is a commerce of 
beings which have an essentially common nature ; and which 
have being at all, and enter into manifold relations, only as 
they have the same Ground. Therefore man could not have 
ideas of things, unless things were themselves, somehow, 
actualized ideas. Nor could he frame any justifiable or 
rational ideal of what actually is, — not, in this connection, 
to speak of what ought to be, — unless that whole which we 
call Nature, or the Universe, were, somehow, to be regarded 
an actualized Ideal. " Somehow," to be so regarded. For no 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 477 

account can be given, either of cognition (which is the epis- 
temological problem), or of the reality given in cognition 
(which is the ontological problem), without admitting every- 
where the actualization of ideas. Neither selves nor things, 
neither the individual beings nor the Universal Nature which 
is the Mother of all individual beings, can be conceived of, 
or can really be, other than as the presence and power of 
immanent ideas is taken into the account. 

All reality is known, then, only as an actualization of ideas. 
But now — for several reasons, and especially because of the 
fact that reality and idea are customarily distinguished as 
contrasted, or even opposed to one another — the inquiry after 
a more definite meaning of this phrase is raised. Such an 
inquiry is likely to be accompanied by the return in full force 
of the tide of scepticism and agnosticism which the first at- 
tempt at a system of metaphysics asks to have, at least 
temporarily, kept back. What, precisely, is meant by the 
" actualization of ideas " ? and, How can it be maintained, as 
a truth on which the theory of knowledge and the theory of 
reality must unite, that the material things of which the world 
is made up are all to be known only as " actualized ideas " ? 

Idea and reality are necessarily contrasted, when by idea 
is meant only an occurrence in the stream of the individual's 
consciousness. The word is, indeed, vague ; and although 
much employed in the earlier English works on psychology, 
logic, and epistemology, it is now more rarely and more cau- 
tiously used. Let us, however, for the moment, accept it in 
this vague and most comprehensive meaning. It then at 
once becomes necessary to make a very important distinction 
among ideas themselves. Some of them, according to this 
distinction, remain mere ideas ; but others of them attain a 
peculiar significance and influence over the perpetual readjust- 
ments of the self to its environment, because they are held to 
he something far more than mere ideas. To this class 
belong such ideas as, by that common consent on which both 



478 A THEORY OF REALITY 

society and science are based, truly and faithfully represent 
realities. In a certain meaning of the word " actual," this 
word may be applied to both classes of ideas ; all ideas actu- 
ally are whenever they occur in the consciousness of an indi- 
vidual self — as actual events, real momenta, or constituent 
parts, of the total life of that self. But such ideas as faith- 
fully represent realities sustain a different relation — so it is 
commonly thought — both to the stream of individual con- 
sciousness and to the world that is conceived of as lying out- 
side of that stream. 

Further experience with ourselves and with others shows 
how the principle of continuity applies even to this fundamen- 
tal and valid distinction in ideas. For there never can exist 
a mere idea, if by this term be meant a phase of conscious 
life, that has no roots in reality, that nowhere takes hold on 
what must itself be considered as lying outside such passing 
phase. On the other hand, there is no idea — not even the 
clearest idea of the most concrete and indubitable actuality, 
as it occurs in the consciousness of the most exact and cau- 
tious scientific observer — that is not replete with elements 
which are the contribution of the peculiar individual mind, 
whose is the aforesaid idea. " The world is my idea," says 
Schopenhauer in the opening sentence of his metaphysical 
treatise, — " this is a truth which holds good for everything that 
lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective 
and abstract consciousness." But this is " empty idealism," — 
to use Hegel's term. It can do nothing for metaphysical sys- 
tem but wander over the shifting field of the individual's con- 
sciousness, and attach its one label for all things to every 
specimen therein ; it is " mine " and " mine " and " mine," 
whether it be the pain of toothache, the latest accepted hypoth- 
esis, or your personality, the realm of Nature, the reality of 
God. And yet, my world is also a more or less closely woven 
system of real beings and actual transactions which is the same 
as the world of other men. Otherwise science and social inter- 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 479 

course of every kind were impossible, and even my own individ- 
ual stream of conscious ideas could not be. Nature makes her- 
self known in the current of my ideas, as she is made known 
to all men ; but she has also her peculiar manner, special 
dress, distinct and individual voice, in revealing herself to me. 

The ideas which arise in my individual stream of conscious- 
ness, — and thus all ideas arise for me, — but which are taken 
to be faithful representations of concrete, actual existences, 
are my so-called cognitions. Like the mere ideas, these cog- 
nitions are really existent only as they are events, actually 
occurring, in the life of the conscious self. But unlike those 
ideas which are spoken of as " mere ideas," and are therefore 
contrasted with, or opposed to, what is actual, all cognitive 
ideas sustain peculiar and significant relations to Reality. 
These relations are summed up for popular expression in the 
phrase " representative." In this their peculiar work of rep- 
resentation, cognitions show to us what is the true type, the 
essential characteristic of an actualized idea. Every " actual- 
ized idea " is, primarily, some phase in the life of a self. But 
any phase is called a " mere idea," and only the actuality of a 
passing event in consciousness is allowed to it, unless it pos- 
sesses something more than simple ideality. This " some- 
thing more " it gets, so far as the standpoint of psychology is 
concerned, by somehow raising itself to the position of a cog- 
nition. Ideas that can say " I know " take hold on a reality 
which is something other than merely an actual event in the 
subject, a temporary phase of the individual's stream of 
consciousness. 

What now is it that ideas faithfully representative of real- 
ity, or in other words cognitions, are thought to have, which 
other and mere ideas do not possess ? The answer which 
psychological analysis suggests is this : Cognitions are not 
mere ideas, because somehow the whole Self goes into them. 
In a word, if I wish to know that any phase of my own con- 
scious life is no mere idea, but that just this phase strikes 



480 A THEORY OF REALITY 

its roots down deep into the reality of my own being, and of 
the being of the world that is not me, then I somehow manage 
to convert the idea into a cognition. This I do, in the simplest, 
most direct and primary way by a deed of will, which is accom- 
panied or followed by the feelings of various kinds that give the 
impulse, the guide; the endorsement to a cognitive judgment. 
That any particular idea is " of " a reality and no longer 
" mere idea," I know whenever I can impute to the idea the 
testimony in experience of volitions and feelings of a peculiar 
kind. In other words, psychological analysis shows that every 
cognition is a complex of feelings, and a deed of will ; and is not 
merely an idea, in the narrower meaning of the word " idea." 
If this analysis be continued into the domain of a critical 
theory of knowledge, it appears that only as man wills, and 
feels the effects of inhibited will, and does not merely ideate 
or merely think, is that commerce with reality gained in which 
the essential nature of cognition consists. 

Further, the analysis of what it is for any being — whether 
Self or Thing — actually to be, and not merely to exist in 
the ideas of some other being (the answer to the metaphys- 
ical question as to what Being, in truth, is), brings the mind 
to a similar conclusion. Every concrete individual reality 
maintains its claim to the title " actual," only in so far as it 
is self-active, constantly guiding its own actions in manifold 
changing relations with other beings, according to immanent 
ideas. This very phrase, " immanent ideas," is the one which 
it was found necessary to substitute for the entirely vague and 
incomprehensible words, " form," " law " " development," etc., 
as applied to the otherwise " crude lumpishness " of things. 
For things, too, are known to be real only as they are wills, 
actively changing relations to one another under the control 
of common ideas. Actuality, for material beings as well as for 
ourselves, requires this same complex of essential character- 
istics, — viz. being self-active, in relation to one another, in 
obedience to ideas, and in pursuit of ideas. 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 481 

We may, then, summarize those demands which we make 
upon every reality, and which we find fulfilled by every real 
being, in the following statement : Ideas are actualized when- 
ever they become consciously recognized as differentiating prin- 
ciples for deeds of will. Or, to turn about the statement of 
this fundamental truth of metaphysics : Self-active beings that 
have cognizable forms, and obey laws, and show adaptations to 
ends, are " actualized ideas." Without regarding them as 
actualized ideas we cannot know either things or selves as 
really existing at all ; and only as things and selves exist 
by conforming to the group of conceptions which experience 
attaches to the " actualization of ideas," do they exist at all. 

The Self makes actual its own ideas by deeds of will that 
are directed by these ideas. This is a plain statement of the 
truth of fact which euters into all our workaday life, into 
all handicrafts, and into all art and all social intercourse. 
So long as I give no expression to my idea by a deed of will, 
or by a succession of such deeds, it remains a so-called " mere 
idea." We have repeatedly said that no idea can be con- 
sidered as severed from all its roots in actuality. Each idea 
still remains my idea ; and if its particular genesis is care- 
fully inquired into, this, too, will be found in some kind of 
being that is not merely my idea. If, however, the mind wishes 
to impart to any conscious state that peculiar kind of actuality 
which makes it impossible any longer to consider such state 
as merely an idea, then the idea must be actualized as a 
formative principle for the will. I act, as both a willing and 
an ideating Self ; and now my idea becomes actualized. This 
actualizing of ideas is illustrated by every simplest daily ex- 
perience, and by the most complicated forms of planning and 
of execution — whether to a successful or an unsuccessful, 
to a wise or a foolish, issue. The movement of some bodily 
member, the drawing of a geometrical figure, the shaping of 
some external material, the taking of a journey, the contrib- 
uting of influence to the mental life of some fellow man or to 

31 



482 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the political and social fabric, may all exist merely in ideas ; 
but these all, in order to become actualized ideas, must be 
set into reality as deeds of will. 

So far as the Self, the actualizer of its own ideas, is con- 
cerned, each concrete actualization is a single, indivisible 
unity, as it were. It is true that the description of what we 
do with ourselves, in every actualization of our own ideas, 
divides that which in its living actuality is one and undivided, 
into subject and object, into faculties of ideation, feeling, and 
will. But the real unity is the whole Self — the conscious, 
self-active will, whose ideas are not actual occurrences, or 
entities, apart from its own being, but are immanent in itself. 
The simplest truth is, at the same time, the most complex, the 
most abstruse, and the most mysterious of truths : I am myself > 
in reality, existent as an actualization of ideas. And this is 
the same thing as saying that I am a will, active according 
to consciously recognized ideas. 

But no individual human being can be considered apart from 
those other beings on whose existence and reciprocal influence 
every such real selfhood is dependent. I cannot actualize 
a single one of my ideas except in so far as I am dependency 
related to other real beings, and thus actualize my own ideas, 
in and through the changes in these other beings. Even in 
the case where my idea is of the very simplest, and the other 
being in which it is to be actualized is most nearly related 
to me, — most intimately under my influence, — the truth 
remains essentially the same. I have, for example, the idea 
of moving my arm — upward, downward, to the right or to 
the left, or in some other definite direction. This is still 
mere idea. To actualize it, then, consciousness must attain 
more of reality than to be a mere show-room, or stage, for 
ideas, whether of its own or of some other being. To actualize 
the idea, the mind must have the reality of being that belongs 
to Will ; it must actualize itself as will in a deed of will. But 
it has already been said that no human mind can give to its 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 483 

idea the simplest and most intimate form of actualization 
without being dependent upon that which is other than itself. 
If one's idea is to be actualized in one's own body, this body 
even must be regarded as other than the ideating and willing 
self. The will sets into reality the idea, and the volition in 
accordance with the idea, through some occurrence in a form 
of reality which has a being other than that of either the idea 
or the will. But this is to say that my idea becomes actual- 
ized when this other being acts in accordance with this idea. 
Thus those bodily movements, which are not mere physiolo- 
gical reflexes, express the mind's ideas and volitions in pur- 
suance of these ideas. The product of the workman's tool, 
the concrete result of the artist's endeavor, the shaping of 
souls by the influences of oratory, or by education, or by 
example, are all instances of the actualization of the ideas of 
one individual being in the changes of a being other than 
itself. 

All man's actualization of his ideas, in order to be under- 
stood or, indeed, to be brought about, must therefore take 
account of the so-called nature of other beings. No ideas of 
any man, however intense and clear those ideas may be, or 
however much backed up and pushed out into reality by 
strenuous deeds of will, can get actualized quite irrespective 
of the material in which this actualization takes place. This 
" other " than the individual self which has the ideas must 
have its say, too, as to what particular ideas shall be actual- 
ized in it ; and also as to precisely how every such actualiza- 
tion shall come about. This significant truth the popular 
language, and science as well, is apt to cover up by speaking 
of the " nature " of things, of the " laws " which they obey, 
of the " forces " that reside in them, and of the " causes " 
that determine the behavior of the things. One cannot make 
chicory as good for the breakfast table as coffee, no matter 
how much one may cherish the idea or the will to accomplish 
this. And not only " if wishes were horses," but also if the 



484 A THEORY OF REALITY 

stones of the highway could be willed to take on the idea of 
acting like horses, then " beggars might ride." That would 
be by no means our world, however, — whether more nearly 
like Paradise, or hell, or a fool's dream, than our world is, — 
in which all manner of ideas could get themselves actualized 
in all manner of real things. All the beings of the world 
may thus be said to be actualizing their own ideas ; but 
then they are all also actualizing each other's ideas. Further, 
most ideas they all refuse either to entertain as actualized by 
themselves, or to assist each other in actualizing. 

What, however, is the meaning for a true theory of reality 
of all such language as the foregoing, which — although we 
gave it a figurative turn — is substantially that employed by 
science and by the people at large ? Men talk about things as 
they do, because their knowledge of things forces them to 
recognize in things the actualization of ideas. That is to say, 
the reality of things, like the reality of the self, is intel- 
ligible only as both are thought to be self-active existences 
that, in all their changing relations to us and to one another, are 
controlled by immanent ideas. But the final meaning which 
the mind is obliged to give to the phrase, " actualized ideas," 
when this phrase is applied to things, remains essentially 
unchanged. The displacement of the older physical conception 
of " brute, inanimate matter," that must somehow have force 
come on it wholly from without in order to get possessed of 
the higher forms and potencies that belong to particular 
things, shows an increased insight into the true nature of 
things. Like ourselves, all material existences are known 
in reality to be, and what they are in reality is known to us, 
only as ideas become " the consciously recognized differentiat- 
ing principles " of the forces they display ; i. e., of their deeds 
of will. 

We do not indeed know how far each particular thing — 
man's body, the spinal cord of the decapitated frog, the white 
blood-corpuscle, the vibrating molecule or atom " electing its 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 485 

affinity" — has the power to participate, so to speak, by co- 
consciousness, in its own different forms of behavior, its own 
obedience to law, its own adaptation to a variety of ends. 
We do know that we ourselves, the so-called crowns of in- 
telligent and self-conscious creation, have this power in only 
a very partial way. Most of what we do, or seem to do, 
is actually done for us by One not-ourselves rather than by 
ourselves, as well as for ourselves. But what we do indubi- 
tably know is this : Knowledge itself is such, and all objects 
of knowledge are known to be such, that the conscious 
recognition of the ideas which differentiate their activities 
must somehow be assumed in order to explain them. And 
this fact cannot have its ground solely in our ideas of things ; 
it must, the rather, have its ground in a reality that is not- 
ourselves. In a word, we know things only as Some One's 
" actualized ideas." 

Neither workaday experience, nor science, nor philosophy, 
can regard things and selves as wholly isolated or separate 
from one another. Every particular existence, whether it be 
of some Self or of some Thing, is known only as a part of 
the total system of selves and things. As what is remote 
becomes known by spectroscope and telescope, and what is 
minute by microscope and chemical analysis, this conception 
of common bonds uniting all particular beings with one vast, 
mysterious, but interrelated Whole, becomes more clear, more 
defensible, more exact, more confidently rational. 

But all such progress toward a more perfect knowledge of 
the world, including man and his historical development, as 
a Unity of Reality, toward a comprehensive history of the 
Cosmos in any comprehensible meaning of such words, rests 
upon the same fundamental assumption. The mind is always 
dealing with a progressive and interrelated system of actual- 
ized ideas. And the more it becomes inclined to insist upon 
the absolute and " uncreate " nature of the totality, the more 
necessary the assumption becomes. Granted, then, that, 



486 A THEORY OF REALITY 

given matter and force, some " I," some Self, could construct 
the world. This could never take place unless the Will of 
such a Self could express itself in the matter and force for the 
actualization of its own ideas. If the Whole is to be under- 
stood as self-contained and absolute, this does not exclude, 
but the rather, of necessity, includes the immanency in that 
Whole of the requisite formative and differentiating ideas. 

Thus far we have been speaking chiefly of the " actualiza- 
tion of ideas.''' But ideals are somewhat other and more than 
ideas — especially when the ideals are considered as set into 
reality. Considered as occurrences in some stream of con- 
sciousness, ideals are essentially like all other ideas. Viewed 
psychologically, they are products of imagination and thought ; 
and they may powerfully excite and efficiently guide the will 
of the man who has them. Thus any man may, in a limited 
manner at least, actualize his ideals. By an ideal, however, is 
customarily meant an idea which sustains a different and pe- 
culiar relation to actuality. Thus understood, an ideal is an 
idea of what " might be," or " should be," or " ought to be," as 
distinguished from an idea of what actually is. The peculiar 
spheres of the ideal are, therefore, supposed to be ethics, art, 
and religion ; and the actualization of such ideals, so far as 
they admit of actualization at all, is to be found in conduct, in 
artistic endeavor, in the religious life. But it does not fall 
within the scope of this treatise to consider in detail such 
ideals as these, — their nature, origin, or means of realization. 

The student of the theory of knowledge and of systematic 
metaphysics cannot fail to observe, however, that what men 
call their surest scientific cognitions, as well as the objects 
which men esteem most undoubtedly real, are not uninfluenced 
by human ideals. Indeed, the very conception of Nature, of a 
Cosmos, of one World of many beings that is constructed out 
of matter and force, is itself an ideal. It is an idea which, 
while it rests on a certain solid foundation of knowledge, 
nevertheless contains not a few thoughts and imaginings as 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 487 

to what " might be," or " ought to be," although it is as yet 
not known " actually to be." : Science cherishes its own 
ideals. Without these ideals science would not be progres- 
sive ; perhaps it would not exist at all. For human minds 
would not be spurred or allured on to its conquests; nor 
would the world of realities seem to meet and to reveal itself 
to these minds. Science, therefore, no matter how exact in 
its realism it may aim to be, is always outrunning its own 
cognitive ideas with the banner of its ideals in its hand. 
And the strain it thus puts upon imagination and thought, as 
well as the rewards which it receives from imagination and 
thought, are little inferior to those which belong to art and 
to religion. 

Pre-eminently is the modern conception of Nature as an 
absolute and uncreate Whole, as a Cosmos that has been 
through countless millions of years in the process of build- 
ing itself by changing combinations of matter and force, and 
has thus raised its own fabric to heights of ever greater com- 
plexity, beauty, and value, a vast and entrancing but un- 
proved Ideal. Strictly speaking, science does not know, and 
it never will know, that the Reality corresponds to this con- 
ception. The conception itself is by no means purely scien- 
tific ; it is largely the work of the artistic and religious soul 
of man. Were it not that, as a conception, it so feeds and 
delights the artistic and the religious aspirations and needs 
of human nature, we might well enough dismiss it as a mere 
ideal, — a fair fabric of a dreamer's mind. For the concrete 
realities and the actual occurrences of man's cognitive expe- 
rience are, in no small number, difficult to harmonize with 
such an ideal. And science itself discovers more difficulties 
as its progress marks the solution of some of the older diffi- 
culties. It is far harder to-day, for example, to accept 

1 Compare the author's "Philosophy of Knowledge," chaps, xri. and xvii. : 
" The Teleology of Knowledge ; " and " Ethical and -Ssthetical ' Momenta ' of 
Knowledge." 



488 A THEORY OF REALITY 

unqualifiedly any scheme of evolution than it was when Dar- 
win first set forth the evidence for his own peculiar scheme. 
It is far harder to-day to place on sound empirical data a 
complete theory of the conservation and correlation of energy 
than it was before the existence of so many mysterious and 
hitherto occult forms of energy (X-rays, etc.) was demonstrated. 

The constitution and meaning of this community of all 
particular known existences is at no time wholly clear. 
We are pleased to call the world a Cosmos, an orderly and 
rational totality. The older scientific conception was that 
of a machine, such as physics can understand ; then of a 
molecular and atomic mechanism ; but the newer scientific 
conception corresponds rather to the biological ideal of an 
organism. Innumerable exceptions, which may rightly con- 
stitute objections, to this view may undoubtedly be noted in 
every department of scientific knowledge. And perhaps 
there is much — even the far greater part — of the World's 
Being which is never to be understood, or made object of 
cognition, by mortal man. Nevertheless, the confidence of 
man in this ideal construction of the totality of selves and 
things remains undiminished. Nay, it is rather being con- 
stantly confirmed. That this artistic and religious concep- 
tion of the world is the true conception, and that the whole 
vast complex of things and selves, whether now known, or to 
be known, or forever undiscoverable by man, is a Unity of 
Reality, the metaphysical system we have been advocating 
would be the last to deny or contest; for this conception 
assumes the actuality of the Ideal. 

It is commonly thought that the ethico-religious view of 
the world — its nature, origin, meaning, and destiny — makes 
wholly extraordinary demands on imagination and faith; it- 
is, therefore, in some peculiar way a piece of anthropomorphic 
idealizing. This may well enough be emphatically denied. 
Anthropomorphic such a view certainly is ; but it is not neces- 
sarily more so than is the current scientific view. Ethics, 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 489 

esthetics, and the philosophy of religion belong to the phi- 
losophy of the Ideal. But no one of these can be separated 
from its roots in the concrete realities of man's daily experi- 
ence, whether with himself or with material things. On the 
other hand, the so-called scientific ideal of the world as a 
whole, of nature at large, is by no means wholly based, by 
strictly valid processes of reasoning, on indubitable cogni- 
tions of reality. But man, in the unity of his own being, 
progressively establishes a firmer grasp upon the great truth 
that this World as a Whole, this Nature written with an 
impressive capital, is to be understood only as it is the actu- 
alization, in time, of the Ideal. 

The system of selves and of things, regarded as a total 
complex of all real existences and of all actual transactions 
within or between them, is the " actualization of the Ideal." 
That is to say, the Reality of It as a Whole, as a Unity of 
some sort, is known and is conceivable only as the actuality 
of One Will which differentiates its activities according to 
its own consciously recognized ideas. This system, thus con- 
sidered as an independent and " uncreate " totality, is cog- 
nizable, or conceivable, only as an Absolute Self. In saying 
this we reaffirm the statement which was formerly made as 
the result of approaching the subject through a detailed criti- 
cism of the categories. 

Two subordinate problems now require, in conclusion, a 
more careful consideration. These are, first, the problem 
involved in the application of the conception of conscious- 
ness (or of any derived or allied conceptions) to the World 
as a whole ; and, second, the problem as to the more appro- 
priate ways of conceiving those relations which exist between 
this Absolute Self and each one of the particular beings, 
or between this Absolute Self and the World regarded as a 
complex of such particular beings. The first of these prob- 
lems may be briefly despatched in this connection ; both be- 
cause its answer has already been virtually given or assumed. 



490 A THEORY OF REALITY 

over and over again, and also because the more important 
phases of the answer involve the discussion of connected 
questions in ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion. 

" To be conscious " cannot, as Lotze seems to affirm, be 
made the equivalent of "to be real;" if, under the concep- 
tion of consciousness, we include every form and phase of it, 
and if we also disregard the different degrees and spheres of 
reality. Neither is it true, as Hegelism seems to assert, 
that conceptual thinking (das greifende Denken) is the equiv- 
alent of all, even of the highest reality. Psychologists need 
the word " consciousness " for the bare existence of psychic 
fact, whether such fact be the sensation just arisen above 
the threshold, or the most obscure form of pleasure-pain, 
nearly or quite void of cognitive content ; or the forthputting 
of a simple and uni-motived deed of will. But to realize 
one's self by one's own cognitive ideas in the pursuit of one's 
chosen ends, — this is precisely what it is for a Self really and 
truly to be. And reversing this equation, in fidelity to all 
man's most indubitable experience, it is truth to say: There is 
no reality knowable or conceivable by man which has not, as 
its explanation and ground, the reality of a cognitive and 
self-active Will. 

Let us not deceive ourselves at this point. It is indeed 
necessary to elevate consciousness above the grade of mere 
psychic fact in order to find in consciousness the guaranty 
and necessary characteristic of the presence of reality. There 
may be many conscious feelings which, considered as mere 
occurrences, do not signify the reality of existences corre- 
sponding to them, or even of those " streams of conscious- 
ness " in which, as psychic facts, the conscious feelings occur. 
But whatever is not both u of" and " to " some self-active will 
that is directed by conscious ideas, has no cognizable reality 
at all ; and to affirm reality of it is to set up the ghost of an 
abstraction and worship the abstraction as an actualized 
ideal. 



THE ACTUALITY OF THE IDEAL 491 

For, here again, the mind of man is not following a doubt- 
ful chain of argument which by a tedious and endless regressus 
takes it to seek refuge in the hypothesis of one original infinite, 
creative Mind. It is, the rather, interpreting, with fuller 
insight, whatever is about it on every hand, whatever is given 
to it in every perception of the senses and inference of intel- 
lect. It is " 'minding " its own datum. The datum is not a 
portion of " brute, inanimate matter," or a centre of mere 
forces, or a mathematical abstraction, or a contentless void. 
Its datum is a reality, self-active, ceaselessly forming itself in 
intelligible relations to other beings. Its datum is an actual 
Thing. 

But every individual thing, as given to man to know, is but 
a pulse, a temporary throb, in the great life of Nature. In It, 
this thing and we who observe it " live and move and have 
■our being." And when we give to ourselves and to things 
these unifying relations to one another and to a common 
ground, we speak in terms of our own higher self-conscious- 
ness, as being ourselves self-conscious wills that guide our- 
selves by consciously accepted ideals. Unless we transfer 
to nature the meaning which our self-conscious and active, 
cognitive life imparts to our words, the words themselves 
are meaningless. Reality that is not grounded in conscious 
life, or that is not the expression of that life, is no reality, 
is nought, is not. And there is no trick shabbier, whether 
employed by science or by philosophy, than to use the terms 
of such consciousness, apply them to particular things or to 
the World as a Whole, and then deny the essential import of 
both terms and their application. 

" Soul is vastly larger than consciousness," says a recent 
writer 1 on the " early Sense of Self," and " the highest powers 
are those that spring from roots that start deepest down in 
the scale of life. Consciousness is as different from mind as 

1 See a pamphlet on " Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self," by G. 
Stanley Hall. 



492 A THEORY OF REALITY 

froth is from beer, and the syllabub of some of its exploiters 
and promoters suggests the mediaeval barber's apprenticeship, 
which ended when the tyro could make two tierces of foam 
from two ounces of soap." This is true if it be meant to deny 
that merely to seem to another to be a sort of centre for the 
occurrence of psychic facts, bare " consciousness, as such," is 
not enough to constitute the substance of a real Self. But if 
it be meant that consciousness in general is to the reality of 
the Self, or to all Reality, as " froth to beer," then nothing 
further from the profoundest truth of philosophy than this 
can possibly be said. 

The categories themselves are the essential and unchanging 
forms of cognitive consciousness ; and they are the necessary 
forms of all known reality as well. Therefore, we do not 
have to rise up from reality, or stoop down to reality, in order 
to find consciousness. Those forms of the actual, without 
which no Self and no Thing can be, are all forms of Will 
directed and determined by ideas. So that the progress of 
human thought is not from the conscious, as a secondary 
product, or mere advent, to the unconscious as its source or 
ground. Neither — we repeat it once again — is the progress 
of human thought a chain of argument from that which is 
now unconscious, back to the conscious in some far-off space 
and remote time. But the movement of reflective thinking 
is from the phenomenon as it appears, a conscious process in 
us, to the reality which is our own self-conscious life ; and 
this same movement of reflective thinking becomes the valid 
but indirect recognition of that One Reality of whose self- 
conscious Life both the thing and our self is the manifestation. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 

Any attempt to specify relations as existing in reality 
between the world and the Absolute, or (to use the language 
of religious faith) between the world and God, brings upon 
the student of systematic metaphysics some of his most diffi- 
cult problems. But the difficulty which attaches itself to the 
solution, and even to the discussion, of these problems is not 
chiefly speculative.- If one felt at liberty to argue the case 
quite irrespective of ethical and religious considerations, one 
might hope at least to attain a fair amount of consistency in 
one's opinions, of solidarity in one's system. But to embody 
in a theory of reality those distinctions which seem to separ- 
ate the concrete and manifold existences from the Absolute 
One, is apt to result either in the conception of a world that 
is devoid of reality, or in the conception of an Absolute that 
lacks just those characteristics which " absoluteness " necessa- 
rily requires. While to identify throughout the world and 
the Absolute too often results in the complete destruction of 
the most valuable conceptions entertained by men in the inter- 
ests of morals and religion. 

The history of metaphysical systems shows how often they 
have divided themselves over the question : What are those 
relations, in reality, which the world sustains to the Abso- 
lute ? This same history also shows that the discussion of 
the question has been accompanied by not a few charges, 
often acrimonious, against the consequences for conduct and 
faith which seemed to flow from these different answers. 



494 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Pantheism, and a materialistic or an idealistic Monism, has 
generally been accused by Dualism (whether of the so-called 
" common-sense " or the philosophic variety) of depreciating 
the practical interests of mankind. But Dualism has never 
been able to establish any such conception of the Absolute, or 
of God as the World-Ground, as would afford a lasting satis- 
faction to the undeniable speculative interests of human- 
ity. In general, those systems of metaphysics which have set 
a high value on consistency of thinking and on a certain solid- 
arity of speculative conclusions, have espoused a doctrine of 
the Absolute which appeared to minimize or to destroy the 
reality of the world of finite selves and finite things. But 
those systems which have exhibited most tenderness in deal- 
ing speculatively with particular existences, have been com- 
paratively lax and unsatisfactory in their doctrine of the 
Absolute as the alone World-Ground. 

Of late there has arisen an increased insistence on the 
value, for philosophy, of the permanent emotional and prac- 
tical considerations. This is, partly, a reaction from the 
extravagant claims of modern science to furnish all that 
man needs for the deepest satisfaction of his intellectual 
curiosity and his practical necessities. It is also, partly, in 
antagonism to those systems of philosophical Absolutism 
which satisfied temporarily, but which have already ceased 
to satisfy. Among them undoubtedly the system of Hegel 
is most prominent. This attempt at an emotional and prac- 
tical philosophy is directly born of the agnosticism which 
followed the Kantian Critique ; although it often expresses 
scanty respect for — as it generally knows little of — the 
meaning of this Critique. Its proposal is thus expressed : 
" Let us . select such few principles of philosophy as best 
satisfy human feelings and afford the best helps in the life of 
human conduct ; the others may go, for they are vain logo- 
machies of mere speculators in metaphysics and theology." 
To serve as a rallying cry for a new party, as though this 



THE WORLD AST) THE ABSOLUTE 495 

metaphysical subterfuge were some nineteenth-century dis- 
covery, this proposal is called the ,; philosophy of Pragma- 
tism.*' or by some other similar name. To the man of insight 
it is. however, perfectly clear that this recent attempt is only 
one among many attempts so to conceive of the relations of 
finite beings and the Absolute, as to save the ethical and re- 
ligious concernments involved, So far forth the " philosophy 
of Pragmatism " is commendable. But inasmuch as this 
particular proposal lies along the line of getting the largest 
result from the least amount of reflective thinking, we may 
well hesitate about calling it philosophy at all. Philosophy 
— yes. even metaphysics — is genial and sympathetic; and it 
may be most tender in its treatment of moral and religious 
issues. But it seeks the true and the self-consistent. Its 
method is not that of syncretism. Its issue is not determined 
when it has pleased men with picturesqueness of imagination 
and abundance of good feeling: neither does it mistake 
rhetoric for philosophizing. 

There are certain preliminary considerations drawn from 
the number of those already discussed, whose bearing upon 
the problem of this chapter is most important. They are 
chiefly the following four : First, every stage and every form 
of human knowledge — including that which seems most 
purely dialectical or philosophic — is dependent upon impulses 
and activities of an emotional and voluntary order. No 
scientific cognition is free from these impulses : what is called 
"science" is never a merely intellectual achievement, never 
an affair of " pure " reasoning from grounds of unbiased 
observation by the senses. Knowledge always involves an 
emotional and active attitude of the entire self toward its 
: :t. What the philosopher knows, or thinks he knows, 
about the Absolute and about its relations to the complex of 
particular existences, is necessarily and rightly influenced by 
ethical, nesthetical. and religious feelings and practical neces- 
sities. This influence, however, does not contribute to the 



496 A THEORY OF REALITY 

exclusion of thinking — as thorough, penetrating, and con- 
sistent as thinking can possibly be made. For if mere think- 
ing is not knowledge, neither is mere feeling, however noble, 
nor mere " will to believe," however well intentioned. 

Second : metaphysics is obligated to spend all its construc- 
tive resources upon the problem of the relations of the world 
and the Absolute. At this problem it must work diligently 
and continuously, in the interests of increased clearness, 
comprehensiveness, and self-consistency. The philosopher 
can no more properly relinquish his claim upon this than 
upon any other important right; he can no more creditably 
refuse to discharge this than any other of his most essential 
obligations. But what is this metaphysics that undertakes to 
arbitrate a dispute over so difficult problems ? It is only, 
when finished and at its best, a " theory of reality." Like 
any other theory it must submit to be tested by the facts of 
cognitive experience. Now we know that we ourselves do 
really exist, that other selves really exist, and that non-self- 
like things exist. All man's knowledge starts from the 
same roots in his experience with actual selves and actual 
things. We know also that man is an ethical and religious 
being (if the words " ethical " and " religious " be denned in 
accordance with the facts) ; and that some sort of reality, 
freedom, and scope for hopes, fears, aspiration, etc., toward 
those ideals with which the philosophy of conduct and of 
religion deals, must be admitted as belonging among the 
plainest facts of man's historical development. Metaphysics 
as a system, as a theory of reality, cannot deny such facts 
without destroying part of its own foundations in actuality. 
System is not true, if it leaves these facts out of its ac- 
count; or if it misrepresents and misinterprets these facts. 
Third : the very use of the words, the world and the 
Absolute, or the world and God, necessarily implies a duality 
of conceptions. The World and the Absolute, the World 
and God, — the very proposal to argue as to the more precise 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 497 

meaning of this terminology, implies some sort of relatedness 
between two conceptions. Even if the conclusion of the argu- 
ment be some scheme to identify the two throughout, — the 
affirmation that the world is the Absolute, is God, — we do 
not escape the use of the category of relation. The world = 
the Absolute ; a+b+c+d . . . 00 = X, is an equation ; and 
the idea of an " equation " is a relation. Or if it be con- 
cluded that these two are only different aspects of the One 
Reality, different ways of expressing essentially the same 
truth, still the mind is obliged to consider how these " as- 
pects " (these " ways of regarding and expressing ") them- 
selves stand related. 

And, fourth, under the term Absolute we cannot under- 
stand, much less conceive of, the absolutely " Unrelated.'' 
Neither knowledge, nor imagination, nor thought, nor envis- 
agement of any kind, can present the mind of man with that 
which is out of all relations. The path to such being lies 
neither through mental representation, nor " intellectual in- 
tuition," nor vague emotion, nor dialectical process, nor infer- 
ence. Conjecture and logic, fancy and faith, are equally 
impotent here. Neither is the Absolute to be brought before 
the mind as the Unrelated, in the form of a so-called " nega- 
tive conception." For even to negate is to relate, and negation 
is itself a relation ; nay, it is often a complex of more or less 
important relating judgments, all of which have a positive 
content of definite relations. 

If by " the Absolute " it is meant to cover a unity which 
has no relations outside of its " self," — as is sometimes so 
significantly said ; even then, and all the more emphatically, 
the mind is dwelling upon certain internal relations that 
define in terms of experience the absoluteness of the Being to 
which the word must be applied. Could this conception be 
so reduced as to make it the equivalent of Nought ; even then 
the mind would not be conceiving of the Unrelated, in a 
merely negative fashion. For " nought" is related to any 

32 



498 A THEORY OF REALITY 

particular one, or to the sum-total of particulars, as its oppo- 
site, as that which is not what the other is. Nought itself is 
not conceived of as the absolutely unrelated. The swelling 
of vague feeling, the stirring of inchoate apprehensions, 
and even the sensuous appreciation of merely physiological 
changes, which is produced in some minds by this word when 
writ large and begun with a capital, are all forms of the 
being in relation to us of that for which the word is made to 
stand. Mere size has nothing to do with the solution of the 
problem of the nature and relations of Absolute Being. 

" A sphere is but a sphere ; 
Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here ; 
Since to the spirits' absoluteness all 
Are like." 

Any theory of reality which grasps firmly and holds con- 
sistently to these four propositions will find the task of out- 
lining the relations of the world and the Absolute by no 
means hopeless from the start. It is indeed a task which 
cannot be accomplished even to the temporary satisfaction of 
the individual thinker, without invoking the manifold helps 
of ethics, aesthetics, and religion. For the ethical character, 
and the artistic skill, and the loving sovereignty of the 
Absolute, are in the world of particular existences, because of 
the relations in which the Absolute eternally stands to this 
world. And when men get the clearer light upon these 
relations, and so the deeper and finer insight into the nature 
of the Absolute, they call Him God, and worship and serve 
Him as their Divine Redeemer and Friend. This is because 
they then know the Absolute as so related to all selves and to 
all things that He is the iuspirer, the source and the type of 
all that is really good, in conduct, art, and religion. The 
relation of the Absolute to the world is then recognized as 
that of the holy, all-beautiful, and all-worshipful One to the 
multitude of particular beings who have their life and their 
reality only as being " in Him." 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 499 

While speculative philosophy cannot fill out. with such 
richness of content and practical helpfulness, the conception 
of the Absolute, it can have something to say that does not 
leave this conception in the "death-kingdom" of mere ab- 
stractions. The Absolute is. indeed, known to the most pro- 
found of metaphysicians only as ••in" the world and as 
"related to" the world. For the speculative thinking of the 
philosopher, as truly as for the "plain men's consciousness." 
the World-Ground can never be identified with the Unrelated. 

It will be the purpose of this closing chapter of a theory of 
reality that is not complete in itself but that only lays the 
foundations upon which ethics, art. and religion, may build 
their superstructure, briefly to define its fundamental position 
respecting the relations of the Absolute and the World. Its 
position, in a word, is this: all the relations that exist 
amongst the particular existences of the world have their 
Ground in the Being of the Absolute : and all these relations 
are but concrete and particular instances of that all-embracing 
relation in which the Absolute stands to the world as being its 
Ground. There are no relations conceivable, or possible, that 
do not have their sources and the guaranty of their actuality 
in the Absolute ; and this eternal and unchangeable relation 
to the world includes and explains all particular relations. 

In illustrating this view, however, no one of the four truths 
which have already been stated must be left out of the 
account. The reality of the world, considered as a complex 
of actually existing selves and things, must not be denied or 
minimized. The actuality of the relations, or terms of relating, 
under which human knowledge brings together this world and 
its absolute Ground, must also be held in good faith. Never 
for an instant must the thinker deceive himself by trying 
mentally to represent the Absolute as the equivalent of the 
absolutely "Unrelated.'"' And. in the work of elaborating 
theory, the interests of ethical and religious emotions and 
practical needs must not be left unsatisfied. 



500 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Theoretical views as to the relations of finite beings to the 
Absolute commonly err in one of two directions. They give 
meanings to the terms they employ for summarizing these 
relations which do not agree well with the conclusions of a 
critical and sympathetic analysis of the categories ; or they 
assume, by employing some one or more of such terms, to 
exhaust the entire content of the complete philosophical doc- 
trine of these relations. Thus, on the one hand, their use of 
words does not correspond to the true and ultimate values of 
the words themselves, as these values are determined by 
metaphysical criticism and as they have their proper place in 
metaphysical system ; or on the other hand, the conclusions 
they reach, while true so long as they are held to be incom- 
plete and partial, become false when considered as complete 
and all inclusive. 

Suppose, for example, that the relation between the totality 
of finite existences and the Absolute is resolved into identity, 
or into some form of emanation. The complex of known and 
knowable particular beings is made indistinguishable from the 
Absolute ; the many, regarded collectively as the All, is self- 
same with the One. The World is the Absolute ; and by the 
Absolute we mean the All-One. This is what is generally un- 
derstood by pantheism, in its simplest and crudest form. Or, 
again, the complex of known and knowable beings emanates, 
either as a timeless procedure or throughout unending time, 
from the Absolute, its Ground. The process of becoming 
which the world exhibits to us is a sort of necessary " drawing 
forth " of particular beings from the inscrutable but univer- 
sal source of them all. Being in general, by a mechanical 
process, becomes particular beings, etc. Now customarily both 
these, and all similar views, show a complete lack of lucidity 
and speculative value, while they make sad havoc with 
practical interests, unless the conceptions fundamental to 
them have been critically examined and accurately defined. 
What is meant by u identity," or " emanation," as specifying 



THE WORLD AXD THE ABSOLUTE 501 

relations that actually exist between the world and the 
Absolute ? The answer to this and to all similar questions, 
can be satisfactory only when the search for it has taken us 
back to the criticism of the categories. 

To restate the conclusion to whicli the valid necessities of 
metaphysical system seem to impel reflective thinking : All 
the fundamental relations whicli man's cognitive experience 
recognizes as existing between the different beings — selves 
and things — of the world have their Ground in the Abso- 
lute ; they only serve the more fully to define and enrich 
the conception of that manifold of relations in which all 
beings stand to Him. For He is not the Unrelated, but the 
source, the guaranty, the actuality of all relations. This 
general position, with its affirmations and its cautions, we 
may now illustrate as applied to certain selected instances. 
These instances will be taken from three main classes of 
relations. 

The most fundamental and comprehensive of all is that 
relation — or, perhaps, it ought rather to be said, that com- 
plex of relations — which exists between the knowing subject 
and his object, between the knower and what is known. This 
relation it is whose fulfilment unites cognition and reality in 
a living oneness of experience ; or — better said — this 
relation is cognition considered as an actual commerce be- 
tween realities that are £t moments " of one Reality. 1 All 
particular instances of this peculiar relation of subject and 
object in knowledge have their source and final explanation 
in the being and activity of the Absolute ; and the relation 
between the universal complex of things and selves, on the 
one hand, and the Absolute, on the other hand, is the relation 
of the knowing subject to his object. To say, God is omni- 
scient — he perfectly knows all things, and all selves, and all 
transactions within or between them — is to affirm that the 

1 Compare the conclusions to which the author comes in the later chapters of 
the " Philosophy of Knowledge.' - ' 



502 A THEORY OF REALITY 

world is actually in relation to the Absolute Subject as his 
object. 

The truth that all beings, their relations, and their transac- 
tions, are objects for the Absolute as subject, is not a matter 
merely of theological speculation or of purely religious faith ; it 
follows indisputably just so soon as we understand those impli- 
cates concerning the constitution and regular modes of the 
behavior of Reality which metaphysical criticism detects and 
explains. For we have seen that such criticism establishes 
the conception of the world as self-explanatory, so to speak, 
only when it affirms the selfhood of the world. No single 
real thing, and no actual individual self can become an object 
of knowledge except in so far as it is able to make the knower 
recognize in it, too, the fundamental characteristics of self- 
hood. It is as centres of an activity which is self-differentiat- 
ing in ideal forms and in the pursuit of ideal ends, that 
things become objects of knowledge for us. If now the dis- 
tinction is made real between the mere complex of all objects 
of knowledge and that unifying principle which makes them 
all something quite other than a mere complex, the world 
must be regarded as standing in the relation of objects to this 
principle, the one Subject for them all. Or, in other words, 
a real unity, embracing all known and knowable objects, 
can be maintained only in the cognitive consciousness of the 
Being for whom, as subject, the particular realities are the 
objects. 

If now one wishes to raise the conception of the relation of 
object and subject, as really existing between the world and 
the Absolute, to its highest terms, this result can be achieved 
in only one way. The perfection of the conception of such a 
relation is realized in that most complete grasp which the 
knowing Self has upon the here-and-now being of its own 
self. "The knowledge of things remains (for us) an analogi- 
cal interpretation of their apparent behavior into terms of 
a real nature corresponding, in important characteristics, to 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 503 

our own." But "the knowledge of Self may attain an 
intuitive penetration to the heart of Reality." Therefore 
this " immediate knowledge of the Self by itself is, in actual- 
ity, the realized ideal of knowledge." Nor can the Abso- 
lute sustain to all finite beings those relations which its 
own conception demands of it, unless it be conceived of 
as realizing — eternally and perfectly — such an ideal of 
knowledge. 

It is customary for those who take the lower and unphiloso- 
phical point of view to regard this vast universe, with all its 
beings and the innumerable transactions and changing relations 
amongst them, as an " object " indeed, but as an object that is 
conceivably separable from the reality of any conscious subject, 
whose object it is. Thus the student of nature transports 
himself through countless ages of time to some lofty point of 
view from which to survey the construction of the greater 
Whole ; or he imagines what an unlimited increase of " inter- 
iorness " and penetrating insight would show to him concern- 
ing the hidden constitution of particular things. So and so it 
all went on, when as yet no conscious mind existed ; when 
matter was wholly " brute and inanimate ; " when the eternal 
atoms were just stirring themselves for their everlasting task 
of building all things as man knows them now to have been 
evolved in the past. TJiis world is, — although in embryo, 
to be sure ; but it is no object for a subject, because It has not 
yet given birth to a subject ; the dawn of subjectivity out of the 
objective chaos is yet to come. Only the bare Being of Matter 
and Force is assumed to be " on hand ; " only actual crude 
" stuff " and abstract forms and laws are as yet real. But they 
are going henceforth, without any assistance from ideas, to 
make a world in which ideating beings shall finally come to 
exist. And of these, the observer is one, whose ideas, or 
purely subjective processes, have arrived at the power to 
represent in consciousness the true objective procedure of the 
•self-building World. This, however, is absurd. 



504 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Who can deny, however, that the picture which the well- 
equipped student of nature draws, with most profuse use of the 
written or spoken word, is itself the object of his own thinking, 
feeling, willing Self ? This picture, surely, has its only reality 
in being object for him as its subject ; when it ceases to be as 
the construct of its particular subject, it ceases from being 
actual at all. But the world that is not identical in existence 
with the picture, and of which the picture is assumed to be 
representative, does not thus come into being and pass away 
in dependence upon this individual subject. What existence 
can it have, however, that is knowable or conceivable, in 
complete independence of a cognitive mind ? The pictures 
which some other mind, in the present scientific age, draws of 
this same world, or the pictures which the students of nature 
will be able to draw in the far-off future when natural science 
is greatly increased, are in like manner dependent for their 
existence — each one — upon some subject-Self. But what is 
the bond that unites the true factors of all the separate trans- 
itory pictures of the world, and thus constructs a possible 
knowledge of the world that is completely and absolutely 
true ? There can be no such bond except the activity of the 
Absolute, considered as standing to the world in the relation 
of a knowing Subject for which all the particular real beings 
and actual transactions are the object. 

In vain does the mind attempt to escape this conclusion by 
regarding the world that really was before it became the 
object of some cognitive subject, as mere Unity of Force or 
blind Will (after the fashion of Mr. Spencer or of Schopen- 
hauer). For the entire course of our past argument has 
shown that Reality can neither be conceived of, nor can act- 
ually be, mere Force or mere Will, formless and helpless, 
because possessing no principles of self-differentiating as 
essential to its own actualizing. Moreover, a Unity of Reality, 
even when conceived of in the most meagre of terms, is still act- 
ualized only as object for some subject. A known or con- 



THE TTOELD AN T D THE ABSOLUTE 505 

ceivable world, cannot exist as a total Real, except as the 
object of an Absolute Subject, an omniscient mind. 

The Absolute, then, is related to all finite beings as the 
subject is related to the immediate object of its cognitive 
consciousness. If one chooses to retain terms that are mean- 
ingless unless translated into conscious experiences one may 
say : The World, considered as Absolute, stands to the World 
considered as a mere complex of individual existences, in the 
relation of an omniscient subject to its total object. But 
translated into the language of experience this means ; God 
knows all that is, and is done, in the world, as the Self 
knows its own being, here and now present to itself, In a 
word, the doctrine of the Divine omniscience, as applied to 
the totality of actual existences, follows from the doctrine of 
the true nature of knowledge and from the valid theory of 
reality as established by a criticism of the categories. But 
that class of relations which may be summarized by the 
terms, subject and object, does not exhaust the conception of 
relations as actually existing between the world and the 
Absolute. 

And when the metaphysician limits his ontology to the dis- 
cussion of the tenet, that the complex of concrete and 
particular existences has its reality in the cognitive con- 
sciousness of the World-Ground, no matter how skilfully or 
comprehensively he frames this tenet, he is sure to controvert 
important facts and principles which are deeply rooted in man's 
experience with himself. Xo reality is fully described or 
exhaustively defined, as existing solely under the relation of 
knowing subject to object known. The very terms, subjective 
and objective, afford only the barest frame work for actualiz- 
ing those manifold relations in which I stand to myself and 
to the rest of the world. This framework requires to be 
filled in with all the concrete conditions of actuality, with 
which compliance must be had in order to win a just claim 
to a place in the ranks of the realities. 



506 A THEORY OF EEALITY 

The world is related to the Absolute as particular realities 
are related to the One Reality which is their common Ground. 
The relation of the phenomenon to the actuality whose 
phenomenon, or manifestation, it is, furnishes warrant only for 
so much of truth as there is in the doctrine of Maya. If the 
mind dwells on this relation as a truth, it is impressed with 
the illusory and transitory nature of all things and of all souls. 
They and we are alike appearances — phenomena. To our- 
selves, we and they seem but as matters of a day. Each 
individual existence is cloud, smoke, vapor, that " appeareth 
for a little time and then vanisheth away." So the Self 
betimes appears to itself ; and this is the manifestation, in one 
set of its real aspects, of his own being to every thoughtful 
man. But " of " what is this manifestation ? It is of the 
Self, as well as to the Self. It is one of my ways of making 
my reality known to itself. As we have seen (chap, ii.) the 
actuality of the Self is implied in the appearance as indubitably 
as is its phenomenal character. Thus, too, the whole complex 
of selves and things may be regarded as a gross sum of appear- 
ances ; the world is smoke and vapor and cloud — a succes- 
sion of phantoms in a purely subjective space and time. And 
" we are moving shadow shapes." Yes, this is one real aspect 
of the world, to which it pleases thought at times to direct 
attention. It has its own value and its own truth. But again 
the question returns : Of what Reality is this world of appear- 
ances the phenomenon ? To say : u It is mere phenomenon, 
bare, ungrounded and uncaused succession of appearances," 
involves the mind in such absurdity that its degree cannot be 
measured in words, or stated otherwise than in terms which 
confute it. The world must, then, be considered as the suc- 
cession of appearances, or of phenomena, whose actuality is 
the eternal Being of the Absolute. 

It is the actuality of this relation between individual exist- 
ences, considered as manifestations, and the Absolute considered 
as their real Ground, which gives to ethics, to art, and to religion 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 507 

much of their appropriate terminology. Conscience is " the 
voice " of God. The beauties and grandeur of nature evince 
a Divine beauty and sublimity, Manifestation, revelation, 
the ; - appearance " of Deity in some specific form, are concep- 
tions which grow out of the roots of this genuine and thoroughly 
philosophic as well as universally human idea. The Absolute 
is the hidden, the unmanifested One ; and philosophy has made 
the vain attempt to consider Him as the " Unrelated." But 
now, on the contrary, all things and all selves, in their mutual 
relations and historic progress, are significant of that wealth of 
relations in which the Absolute stands to all the phenomenally 
real. The world — in the most comprehensive possible use 
of that word — is God's appearance, his self-revelation, his 
" phenomenon." 

And to all particular processes of change, as well as to the 
specific principles of becoming which, as men figuratively say, 
" rule over'' these processes, the Absolute stands in the rela- 
tion of the One Principle, or Source, of ail Becoming. In dis- 
cussing the category of change (chap, vi.) it was seen that 
unprincipled and unregulated change — mere change — cannot 
afford any account of the being and development of the system 
of minds and things. The very claim to reality, made by any 
particular mind or thing, implies that the changes which it 
undergoes are under the control of principles of becoming. 
So that it is impossible to speak of the world as a vast col- 
lection of unrelated and unsystematized changes, or of its 
history as a mere succession of changing states that happen 
without reference to any principles of change. What the 
mind of man knows as the result of growth in experience, and 
more specifically and comprehensively as the result of the 
advance of science, is this : Things change in a mutually 
determining way. Looked at as a passivity or receptivity in 
things, they may be said to obey the laws of the various 
becomings which are induced in them. Looked at as an activ- 
ity or endeavor of things, they mav be said to be alwavs reach- 



508 A THEORY OF REALITY 

ing out after new — and perhaps, in most cases, improved — 
forms of manifesting what they are, and what they can do. 
But looked at as both passive and active, the totality of things 
constitutes a world of changes, a sort of system of becomings ; 
so that we may indicate, however imperfectly and dimly, an 
important truth of fact by saying : " The World is becoming 
thus and so ; " or " the World is changing in the direction of 
this or that idea, which sets to its course of changes a sort of 
goal." 

This idea of a system of changes, or becomings, which falls 
under a relatively few fundamental laws, or supreme control- 
ling principles, is the essential factor in the modern doctrine 
of evolution. It is so, whether that doctrine take the more 
definitively scientific shape — as, for example, in biological 
evolution — or be more speculatively constructed as a com- 
prehensive philosophical tenet. Darwin and Spencer, Weiss- 
mann and Schopenhauer, alike aim at the discovery of the 
unchanging principles of all changes, the absolutes that are in 
relation to the becomings, as giving to the different forms of 
becoming their inciting and inhibiting ideas. But when the 
thought of man has reached the heights of pride and ambition 
necessary for the attempt to comprehend the Source of all 
these principles in the Being of the World, then the category 
of identity can by no means be made to fill the place of the 
category of relation. Mere processes of becoming, as such, 
however few in number and widely distributed over the realm 
of minds and things, do not afford an explanation of them- 
selves. They are still only descriptive history or romantic 
story of the order of the phenomena ; they constitute neither 
a true cognition, nor a defensible theory, of Reality. The 
principles of becoming must, indeed, belong to the beings that 
undergo the processes of becoming; for principles are not 
themselves entities foreign to the realities which recognize 
and observe the principles. But when all changes are referred 
in thought to a Unity of Reality, all becomings to some one 



THE WORLD AXD THE ABSOLUTE ■: '. 9 

does not belong to the changes, as such. 

In other words, ah evolutionary theory conceives of the 
world and 'he Absolute as standing in the relations of a vast 
: mples ;: mexistent and successive changes tj a Ground 
that somehow lecides what these changes shah be. but dies 
n:t Itself change. Al: toe becomings, tanen in tueir reia- 



ueotel together in a process of development. The princi- 
ple :: all these becomings, considered as the ideal source of 
thera all. ana as giving the la~s ana forms, and setting the 
goals, for them all = the unchanging Absolute, This Abso- 
lute, thin, stands to the world in the hurt relation of an i deal 
Principle .: Becoming t: all via o particular changes which 
take place, however caused when regarded from the scientific 
| rint :f view, in all space, anl throughout ail time. 

^hhat sort of a real being the Absolute must be. in order to 
constitute the sole, ultima re principle of becoming, has .ten 
mole hear by all nor previous discussion. Only an Absolute 
Self, whose essential and unchanging characteristics are those 
of a rational and free Spirit, can fulfil the required conditions. 
When, then, the evolution of all particular beings, minis and 
things, is referred to this Spirit as its Ground, i: is not meant 
the: the Absolute is either identical throughout with the sum- 
total of the processes of change, or that the Absolute is itself 
- _ "ing a an; :ess :: beciming. VThat is most titly meant 
januot be lisrassed in detail without appeal t: the facts ami 
:in:it"les :: ethics, aesthetics anl religion. But the incep- 
tion afforded by our theory :f reality shows how God map be 
at me same time neither separate from the world, as though 
he hoi left it to itself, nor ilentihel with the wool I consid- 
ered merely as a spstem an I uaenling course of changes. 

The advocate of that form of metaohvsics which is called 



510 A THEORY OF REALITY 

" common-sense dualism," or " physical realism," is apt at this 
point to interpose an objection. To regard the Absolute, he 
says, as " manifested " in all the complex of finite spirits and 
things, or as standing to this complex in the ideal relation of a 
"principle" of becoming, tends to render the world ghostly 
and unreal. On the contrary, as tested by the standards of 
cognitive experience, the Absolute is to be considered as a 
" manifestation " of finite spirit, a " phenomenon " of human 
development, a process of ideation and abstraction within the 
consciousness of the individual man. There is truth on the 
side of this objection, so long as these terms — " manifesta- 
tion," "phenomenon," and "revelation," or the like — are 
held, even seemingly, to exhaust the content of the relations 
of the totality of finite beings and the Absolute. But the es- 
sential point in the theory of reality we are maintaining is 
precisely this : — All relations have their Ground in the Unity 
of Reality, whose name, for religion, is " Almighty God." Just 
as relation must itself be considered as the " mother " of all 
the categories, so the Reality which is known under the terms 
of all these categories is the source and the actualization of all 
the fundamental relations covered by the categories. 

It is through terms expressive of "force," " causation," etc., 
that the actuality which seems lacking to the more obviously 
ideal forms of relation is given back to the world of finite 
spirits and finite things. It is as " centres of force," and as 
being themselves capable of exercising causative influences 
upon each other and of standing in causal relations, that finite 
spirits and finite things are considered real. When things 
are conceived of as only manifestations of an underlying or 
an over-ruling reality, they appear to have only an ideal ex- 
istence. Finite spirits and finite things evince their reality by 
doing something to each other, according to the amount and 
kind of force which is in them, and under those observed 
formulas, or laws, which describe the ideal terms on which the 
doing takes place. 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 511 

So, too, can the Absolute himself vindicate a claim to reality 
and establish a clear title to be somewhat more than a con- 
ception, only by an exercise of force, only by being a source 
and a principle of all causal relations. The relations of the 
Absolute to the world must be actualized in terms of force ; 
the One Cause must interpenetrate and make real all so- 
named " causal " relations. This is what philosophy inter- 
prets modern science to mean when it regards the various 
forms of the conservation and correlation of energy as apper- 
taining to one Force. This is what philosophy understands 
science to assert when it declares the quantum of this energy 
to be unchanging. The different, otherwise separate, and 
otherwise unreal existences are thus bound together into an 
actual, as distinguished from a merely conceptual, unity ; for 
they share together in the bountiful distribution of this one 
Force. 

Indeed, even the ghostliest and most abstract terms which 
thought can employ to designate hypothetical relations 
amongst things have any significance only as they hint at 
the realization of man's ideas of force and of causation. No 
thing can enter into any relation with another thing, or have 
any relation entered into with itself by other things, except in 
so far as it is the possessor and the distributor of force, the 
partner in a causal transaction. In believing this, the mind 
is not juggling with its own terms. Even the most obscure 
and evanescent manifestation implies both the energy to 
make it, and the energy to react upon it. Only forces can 
be the responsible sources of phenomena. In truth, the 
relation between the thing and its manifestation, between the 
actuality and the phenomenon, is the most original and typical 
instance of the causal relation. The essence of causation is 
the relation of appearances to " that-which " is real. In 
reality, no phenomenon causes, or accounts for, another phe- 
nomenon, — both being considered as mere phenomena ; it is 
always reality that energizes to produce its own appropriate 



512 A THEORY OF REALITY 

phenomenon. The source of the causal relation is in the 
mutually inciting and reciprocally limiting activity of things. 

But no individual being is possessed of inhibited, unre- 
lated, or unlimited, force ; neither soul nor thing is a cause 
of any change, not even of its own most peculiar and dis- 
tinguishing phenomenon, in a perfect independence of all 
other souls and things. All manifestations of energy in mind 
and in matter are relative and dependent. They sustain in- 
escapable relations to the constitution of the being whose 
energy they manifest ; and this constitution is itself a child of 
nature, — a derived being, dependent upon relations and 
activities whose existence and exercise lie beyond any par- 
ticular being's control. Give and take, act and be acted upon ; 
— this is the law for all concrete and individual existences. 
Thus they actually are, — relatively independent and yet ab- 
solutely dependent; they are self-centred only so long as 
they both continue to act from this centre and also to find 
this centre reacted upon. " Have thy force in thyself, at 
thy own command ; be really a force " — such is the horta- 
tion which proceeds from the very nature of the Absolute 
Himself. But this hortation can in no wise abrogate the 
truth that in the same Absolute, we and all things " live, 
move, and have our being." 

Considered, then, as relatively independent existences, all 
selves and things have only a being derived from, and de- 
pendent upon, the Absolute Being of God. All their reality 
is related to Him, who is the alone absolute Reality, as to its 
source or ground. All the forces which they exercise, and of 
which they seem to be possessed, are dependently related to 
the one inexhaustible source of energy ; to the Being of the 
Absolute regarded as omnipotent Will. Every individual 
display of energy, however originating in that complex of 
changes which is known as the actual history of the world, 
has this twofold character : it is at the same time an energy 
of the things concerned, and so to be classified as iZ"(heat), 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 513 

or U (electricity) or M (magnetism), as having the quantity 
x, or ?/, and as due to a concurrence of relating circumstances 
comprised under the formulas m or n ; but it is also the ever- 
present energy of the Absolute, to which all the forms of 
energy known by the particular sciences are dependently 
related, as having in IT alone their source and their ground. 
When the thing acts, God acts. Where the energies stored 
in the different portions of matter are, there is the immanent 
and omnipotent Will of God. 

Nor can the being and self-activity of particular selves be 
considered as otherwise related to the Being and Will of the 
Absolute. We, too, have life, motion, and being, " in Him." 
Even when I will to assert my independence of the compelling 
power of my physical environment, or — if you please — to 
resist and to defy the power of the Almighty, this assertive, 
resisting, and defiant will of mine is not for an instant able to 
render itself independent of its source. The source of my will- 
power is the source of all power ; it is the Will of the Absolute. 

How, then — it is asked with commendable eagerness — 
can the freedom and true personality of man be maintained 
in such a way as to conserve the inseparable and invaluable 
interests of ethics and of religion ? The question is perti- 
nent and important. No theory of reality which does not 
provide positively for its satisfactory answer, or at least 
refrain from making such an answer impossible, can long 
stand the test of man's inclusive experience. For the facts 
on which the interests of ethics and religion repose are as 
undoubted and as significant as are any of the facts affirmed 
by experience. In truth, there is no small reason for the 
belief that knowledge itself reaches the fulfilment of its own 
highest significance as a means to right conduct and to the 
life of religious faith and devotion. That knowledge cannot be 
attained, or critically considered, without emphasizing its own 
quasi-ethical constituents and implications, we have else- 
where shown with sufficient detail. 

33 



514 A THEORY OF REALITY 

The problem of the relations sustained by the human will, 
to the will of the Absolute, does, indeed, belong more speci- 
fically to the philosophy of ethics and of religion. It cannot 
be satisfactorily discussed by general metaphysics, as apart of 
the analytic, critical, and systematic treatment of the categories. 
Metaphysics, however, has a certain preparatory work to 
accomplish with reference to the later treatment of this prob- 
lem. Two or three of its principal points of view may properly 
be emphasized here: And, first, it is the forms, laAvs, and 
ideal ends, of any particular existence which define the more 
precise nature of the relations sustained by each such exis- 
tence to that Absolute Being in whom they all have their 
ground. Dependent on Him ceaselessly and without excep- 
tion, all beings actually are ; but different beings actualize in 
far different ways their general relation of dependence. The 
forms, laws and ideal ends realized by the dependence of 
human selves upon the Absolute Self are, in fact, far different 
from the forms, laws, and ideal ends of the lower animals, 
or of material things. Here theory cannot controvert facts ; 
here it is pre-eminently necessary that theory should be based 
upon facts. The formal conditions of man's relations to 
God and to the external world are not the same as those which 
control the relations of things to one another and to God. The 
laws of the human psychical life are not a mere repetition of 
physical laws or of the laws of the psychical life of the lower 
animals. And men do select for themselves, and do actually 
follow, ideal ends that never appear in the consciousness of the 
lower animals, and are never obviously served by the behavior 
of things. In the case of man pre-eminently and perhaps 
also in the case of the lower animals, each individual in the 
species attains a position in reality which is dependent upon 
its own will ; -7- and in the case of man, u will " means a more 
or less highly developed power of choosing his own forms, 
laws, and final purposes. Thus man reaches a high degree 
of relative independence, a sphere — or, if you will, an 



THE TTORLD AXD THE ABSOLUTE oio 



amount, of reality — which belongs to him alone among all 
known finite existences. But this does not take the human 
species, or the individual man out of the system of finite 
beings ; nor does it for a moment break the thread which 
ties him in dependence to the Will of the Absolute. 

Second, there is not necessarily any more contradiction 
involved in this so-called " double aspect" of the relations of 
man to God, than is involved in the consideration of all parti- 
cular existences from both the scientific and the ultimate, or 
metaphysical, points of view. Two of H unite with one of to 
form the compound H 2 "because of" the laws of chemical 
affinity and " because of" the relations into which the H and 
are brought by the compelling forces of their environment, 
— temperature, pressure, induced molecular activities, etc. 
But the chemical is not the entire explanation of such a transac- 
tion in reality. Really, H- and come together in this 
way, because " it is their nature to ; " the ultimate explana- 
tion takes into the account the mysterious being of these 
elements as a primary postulate, a precondition of all the 
forms and laws of their reciprocal behaviors. Xow, from 
philosophy's point of view this is essentially no other than the 
position : H and behave in this way because it is the Will of 
the Absolute that they should so behave. Metaphysics cannot 
consider the " nature of things " as something bestowed upon 
them, in the lump and once for all as it were. Thus is all 
scientific cognition forced virtually to acknowledge a mysteri- 
ous metaphysical aspect of things, a primal and original being 
which they have, in immediate dependence upon the All-Being 
whose will they express. Whether any fitting terms can be 
found to express these two aspects of the activity of human 
wills without destroying either the truths of fact or the truth 
of metaphysical theory, remains to be seen. But should wo 
be forced to accept both aspects, and yet continue to regard the 
details of a reconciliation as hidden among the mysteries of 
Absolute Being, the way of God's will with the will of man 



516 A THEORY OF REALITY 

would not be the only ultimate mystery. The way of our 
own wills we know, within certain limits, most clearly and 
indubitably. This it is the business of psychology and of the 
philosophy of ethics to expound. The general relation of the 
Will of God to this our will follows from the most primary and 
necessary tenets of systematic metaphysics. But the particu- 
lar forms, laws, and final purposes, of this relation afford a 
complex problem which must be approached from many 
points of view, and the complete solution of which may 
baffle man's inquiries forever. To regard God as sometimes 
compelling, sometimes openly persuading or alluring, some- 
times directing by special revelations, and sometimes " leav- 
ing man to himself" is to employ figures of speech that are 
not without much to commend them in all human experience. 
It is these relations of force and causation sustained by 
manifold particular existences to absolute and supreme Being, 
that religion has emphasized in various ways. Thus, in its 
cruder forms it has regarded the gods as puissant centres of 
more than ordinary effective and wide-spreading forces, on 
whose action the well-being of man and the phenomena 
of nature are dependent ; in its higher forms, it has regarded 
the alone God as the Almighty, the Omnipotent One. It has 
employed such terms as " Creator," " Preserver," or " De- 
stroyer," " El-Shaddai," the " Lord of Hosts," to designate 
the permanent relations of this class which exist between 
the world and the Absolute. In the form of pious feeling, 
it has acknowledged the dependence of the will of the good 
man, for every good deed, upon the Divine Will ; and grati- 
tude for the bounties of harvest and vintage, as well as for 
insight into the truths of nature, of philosophy, and of poli- 
tics, has characterized the temper of the wise of all ages. 
Nor have these spontaneous proofs of the absolute depend- 
ence of all finite existences, forces, and causes, upon the Will 
of God been allowed wholly to submerge those ethical con- 
victions of responsibility, and of the rational character of 



THE TTORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 517 

approbation and disapprobation, which emphasize the relative 
independence of the human will. 

The third main class of relations which experience com- 
pels us to affirm as actually existent between the world and 
the Absolute is yet more obviously derived from man's 
highest ideals. These relations are such as exist between 
conscious mind and the expression, or manifestation, of its 
ideas in some form of actuality. More abstractly denned, 
they are summed up in the general relation of the controlling 
Idea to the concrete product which it shapes. The Absolute 
has actualized his ideas in the forms, laws, and final purposes 
of this vast complex of things and selves : God has shaped 
the world "to his -mind.'' 

The validity of all human knowledge is committed to the 
proposition that the forms, laws, and final purposes of the 
world are not merely a subjective possession ; they belong 
also to the things themselves. Unformed existences are not 
real : it is essential to the very being of everything to have, 
both actually and potentially, some appropriate form. Nor 
is there any Nature to be known, any Cosmos to be conceived 
of, which is not in its constitution obedient to laws in the 
pursuit of certain ideal ends. By the word "law" we can 
mean nothing actual but to indicate that things are all 
known to behave themselves under the control of immanent 
ideas, — just as, in fact, we know ourselves to do. 

Forms, laws, and ideal ends, weave themselves together in a 
bewildering complexity, and with an activity so ceaseless and 
so intricate that it is always quite impossible fully to trace 
it. Yet somehow the known "World is one ; a marvellous 
unity belonging to the pattern woven by this vast machine — 
albeit, we cannot discover much as to what precisely that 
pattern may be. But the Being whose oneness of will is the 
source of all actual existences, and of their equipment of forces, 
and of their reciprocal causal activities, is also the source of 
the ideas and purposes which they all display. The Absolute 



518 A THEORY OF REALITY 

is not bare, blind Will, or mere Unity of Force. The Absolute 
is also the fountain of all that science regards as the forms, 
laws, and final purposes of the existences which, taken 
together, constitute the world. To affirm this is only to give 
the ultimate metaphysical explanation of the actual state of 
the case ; to deny this is to make all such explanation for- 
ever impossible. 

Looked at from the point of view which is interior and has 
regard to its so-called " nature " and its natural behavior, 
every thing forms itself as though endowed with the requi- 
site ideas, as well as with the forces required to actualize 
those ideas. Its very being consists in its se(f-activity — that 
is, in its activity according to those ideas which define its 
own "self"; it is only such behavior that can impart the 
"relative independency" which particular realities possess. 
Looked at from the point of view which is exterior, and 
which discerns the dependence of every existence upon the 
action, upon it, of other related existences, every individual 
thing must be regarded as formed by other things, as having 
its own activity not determined by itself alone, but also by 
the other selves to which it stands related. 

Looked at from the interior point of view, every thing ap- 
pears to be willingly obedient to the laws which control the 
part allotted to it in the World of things. Indeed, these 
laws are themselves nothing other than the formulated ex- 
pressions of the ideas which define the very nature of the 
thing ; they are only its natural ways of behaving itself 
under a greater or less variety of changes in occasion and 
circumstance. But looked at from the external point of 
view, every thing appears to be forced to obey laws which 
originate outside of itself, and which are dictated to it by its 
environment, in accordance with the natures of those other 
things that constitute this environment. 

Looked at again from the one point of view, every thing is 
seen to be seeking and, more or less successfully, winning its 



THE WORLD AXD THE ABSOLUTE 519 

own ends. It is a " will to live ; " and it gets its will by using 
what it can of the " stuff " of its surrounding world as means 
to its own ideal ends. And according as it stands, of itself 
or in its own nature, high or low in the so-called scale of 
existences, it becomes the actual locus, as it were, of these 
same ideal ends. It has its own ideas of what it wants to be, 
and to do, of the ends it wills to attain ; and it uses, and 
adapts as it uses, the means to these ends. But looked at 
from the other point of view, no existence is an end to itself ; 
the rather is every existence only means to something other, 
which may be either higher or lower, nobler or more ignoble, 
worthier or seemingly more worthless, than itself. The worm 
serves the fish's rt will to live " as its means ; and the fish, 
having eaten of the worm, becomes means to the final purposes 
conceived by some man. Yet that same man may in turn be 
himself means to the final purpose of the worm ; and this may 
enable the fish to make some portion of that same man a 
means toward the accomplishment of its own ideal ends. 
Only as we bring in u ideas of value," which are chiefly de- 
rived from the spheres of ethics, aesthetics, and religion, can 
we discern any correspondence with our own highest ideals in 
all this. But that the World, as man knows it, is in reality a 
vast complex of inter-related means and ends, a veritable 
maze of curious and often (from the point of view of our 
ethical, aesthetical, and religious ideals) unintelligible adapta- 
tions, we have the facts abundantly to prove. 

All things, then, as looked at from both, and indeed from 
all possible, points of view, are both self-forming and formed 
by others, are behaving in accordance with law, whether 
voluntarily adopted or forced, and are following their own 
ends and also serving as means to the attainment of the ends 
of others. Such is u the world," as known by man. And the 
pertinent truth about it all is this : — With the growth of 
knowledge in the individual and in the race, such a picture of 
the world gains increasing breadth, and depth, and richness 



520 A THEORY OF REALITY 

of color and of meaning. At least this is so for the soul 
which allows itself to be influenced by those ethical, aestheti- 
cal, and religious considerations, which lie somewhat above 
and beyond the fields of general metaphysics, although they 
are not in nature altogether foreign or hostile to these fields. 
And the human race is made up — it is our faith — of an 
increasing number of such souls. Meanwhile, all the progress 
of science, with its gathering of new insights into the nature 
of the World, consists chiefly in endowing IT with newly dis- 
covered complications of form, law, and final purpose. For it 
is only as science weaves the pattern, in which form, law, and 
final purpose are ever-present, interlacing threads, that science 
presents us with the knowledge of a Cosmos, a genuine sys- 
tem of things, and not a mere jumble of mutually disregard- 
ing existences and of unconnected events. 

When, now, the question is raised, What is the ontological 
relation of such a World to the Absolute ? the answer need 
not long be delayed. For this answer does not come as the 
result of an endless chain of reasoning which carries the mind 
away from actual finite beings to infinite distances of space or 
time ; or which requires a speculative insight that can dis- 
pense with all that falls under the conditions of space and 
time. This answer is, the rather, a true apprehension of what 
is implicated in these very conditions of what is the nature of 
the ever-present Reality. 

Philosophy, since Kant, has denied the right of the onto- 
logical argument for the Being of God in its leap from a mere 
conception, however grand and aesthetically captivating, to 
the conclusion of a corresponding Reality. Tt has also objected 
to the cosmological argument that its reasoning, when con- 
ducted in accordance with the strictest obligations to its own 
logical character, involves it in the hopeless attempt at an 
infinite regressus. Backward and still backward must the 
mind go, from the conditioned to the conditioned, from one 
set or system of conditions to a pre-existent set or system of 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 521 

conditions ; but nowhere can this flight of thought come to its 
resting-place in the Unconditioned ; nowhere does the mind 
discover a logical ground that is at once legitimate and final. 
But while the pre-Kantian theology misused these so-called 
arguments, the post-Kantian agnosticism has not done credit 
to the truth that is in them. Strictly speaking, they are not 
separable lines of argument at all ; neither are they deduc- 
tions that need, in order to validate them, the assistance of 
detailed presentation in syllogistic form. And, certainly, 
they are not correct specimens of scientific induction. They 
describe in faulty manner the inevitable, because the constitu- 
tional, legitimate, and rational, way which the mind of man 
takes in dealing with the complex realities of his complete 
experience. Human reason seeks a Theory of Reality. As 
it knows more of itself, of other minds, and of things, in their 
vastly complex and ever-shifting particular relations, it cease- 
lessly reaches after the unity of an explanatory Ground. It 
cannot possibly regard forms, and laws, and adaptations or 
uses of means to the realizing of ends, otherwise than as the 
products of mind. If the world is progressively better known 
as a vast complex of forms, laws, and final purposes, it cannot 
be known otherwise than as the expression, the manifestation, 
the realization, of Absolute Mind. This conclusion, we repeat, 
lies not at the end of a chain that can have no end ; neither 
is it buried, as a pot of gold, at the foot of a rainbow painted 
by fancy in a painted sky. It is simply the mind's recognition 
of the inner and ultimate truth of the world, as the world is 
known by man — namely, as an experienced complex of forms, 
laws, and final purposes. 

These, then, are the relations sustained by the world to the 
Absolute, which the mind of man finds implicate in all its 
cognitive experience. The world is the realization of the ideas 
of the Absolute. This is the assumption as to the Being of 
the Absolute that can be the Ground of such a world : It is 
Mind. Therefore, the relations of the world to the Absolute 



522 A THEORY OF REALITY 

must be conceived of as those sustained by the varied and 
interrelated realizations of ideas to their Ideal Source, to the 
Idea, to the absolute Mind. 

Thus far we have been emphasizing the positive and univer- 
sal aspects of the problem, as they reveal themselves in the 
lights shed by a theory of reality which bases itself in confi- 
dence upon the cognitive experience of man. All the actual 
relations of things and selves have their ground, and so their 
explanation, in the One Being. All those fundamental rela- 
tions, whose application to real existences is implicated in the 
criticism of the categories, are always sustained by the 
world to the Absolute, as to its Ground. These affirmative 
positions represent the conceptions which a systematic and 
critical metaphysics has to contribute to the solution of this 
problem. But ethics and religion are accustomed greatly to 
concern themselves with negations and exceptions. This they 
aim to do in the interests of the practical life of man. For 
the will of man they require an exception to be made ; it must 
not be conceived of as absolutely dependent upon the will of 
the Absolute, as are the wills of the lower animals, or those 
centres of a relative self-activity which we call things. Con- 
cerning his relation to nature, too, — religion and ethics demand 
a denial that man is a part of nature, or is subject to its laws, 
as are all the particular portions of " brute and inanimate 
matter." Religion wishes even to make man's existence as a 
self-conscious and ideating Self an exception to the common 
horde of existences which last only as the resultants of tem- 
porary combinations amongst physical or psychical elements. 
While all things pass away, man must be non-mortal. 

No thoughtful student of metaphysics — not to say, the 
man who is wisely sensitive to those interests of life which 
have the highest value — can regard unsympathetically this 
demand which ethics and religion make for exceptions and 
negations. Theory of Reality can no more properly than can 
any other form of thought, tramp steadily onward with the iron 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 523 

heel of logic over the quivering and bleeding souls of human 
beings. They, too, with all their pains and pleasures, their 
hopes, fears, faiths, and aspirations, are facts which concern 
our theory of reality. Knowledge itself is not independent of 
the emotional and voluntary activities of the knower. 
Knowledge has largely, if not chiefly, its own end to serve in 
the promotion of right conduct and the development of praise- 
worthy character. But philosophy does not serve ethics and 
religion in the best possible way by accepting the assumption 
of Kant, that knowledge has to be removed in order to " make 
room for faith ; " or by divorcing utterly the principles of con- 
duct, and of religious belief and worship, from the principles 
of " common sense " and of science. 

So, then, whatever seeming exceptions or negations are 
demanded by the facts of ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy 
of religion, in our theoretical way of conceiving the relations of 
the world to the Absolute, may wait until a critical testing 
of those facts can be made. But it is an important thought 
borrowed from metaphysics, that the mode of the Divine Will 
with finite wills is infinitely various ; and that the manner of 
the dependency of these wills upon the Absolute is as manifold 
as is the number of these wills. Yet always this relation is, 
essentially considered, the same ; for human wills have no force 
that is not drawn from the reservoir of infinite Force : they have 
no existence which is not a being-dependent upon the Being 
of the Absolute. It is also an important conclusion from our 
systematic study of metaphysics, that all the valid negations 
and denials, made necessary by the facts to which ethics and 
the philosophy of religion appeal, are virtually brought about 
by an interpretation of the categories upon a basis of our 
total and common experience. This position may be briefly 
illustrated in the case of those two theoretical statements to 
which the developed moral and religious consciousness of man- 
kind is accustomed most emphatically to object. These may 
be summed up as follows : " The World is, or is identical with, 



524 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the Absolute ; " and " the World is the emanation, or necessi- 
tated evolution of the Absolute." 

" The World is, or is identical with, the Absolute." Let 
us briefly consider what can be the meaning of this. If it be 
intended by such a statement to affirm for these two con- 
ceptions an exact logical equivalence, or a complete sameness 
of significance, then the proposal is either of no particular 
value in a system of metaphysics, or else a judgment is laid 
down, in the form of the most assured, a priori, conclu- 
siveness, which contradicts some of the particular conclusions 
reached by the critical attempt to frame such a system. If 
any thinker chooses, indeed, to say, " I employ these two con- 
ceptions — World and Absolute — in precisely the same way," 
then no other thinker can gainsay the right, even though the 
impropriety soon be made most obvious. But it has been 
shown in detail (p. 456 f.) that the attempt to conceive of the 
W T orld, or Nature, as " absolute," inevitably results in the 
introduction of considerations which force upon the mind 
anew a most important division of these conceptions. The 
world considered as a vast complex of interdependent beings, 
becomes related to the World as absolute, somewhat as mani- 
fold phenomena are related to the one Actuality, or as many 
finite existences and occurrences are related to their One 
Ground. Nature, considered as an absolute unity, inevitably 
becomes split again into two parts, to which names must be 
given that indicate a return of the same fundamental distinc- 
tions : Natura is both natura naturata and Natura naturans. 
But this introduces over again, with no advantage from any 
higher point of view, the same old problem of the relations of 
the world considered as a known or conceivable complex of 
existences and events, to the Absolute. 

If, however, it is affirmed that the world is known by all 
men, on account of the very nature of human knowledge, to 
be in reality absolute, the affirmation is either most obviously 
false or most profoundly true, according to the meaning given 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 525 

to the relations expressed by such terms. To say that the 
terms on which men generally know the interconnected 
things and selves of their experience — the world that is 
each man's world — compel them to assert its equivalence 
throughout, in reality, to Absolute Being, is to say what 
neither comparative psychology nor philosophy can substan- 
tiate or even credit. On the other hand, that all human 
knowledge virtually discerns the presence of an absolute as 
the " support " and " realistic core " (to use figures of speech 
whose meaning has already been made plain) of every phe- 
nomenon, is a conclusion enforced by all critical epistemol- 
ogy. Something is real; this is the implicate of all cognitive 
experience. What is the real nature of this everywhere 
immanent Absolute, every attempt at a systematic and crit- 
ical metaphysics wishes to expound more clearly. But when 
this attempt leads to the barren assertion of a merely logical 
equivalence between the World and the Absolute, it ends in 
empty abstractions. 

The burden and the affliction of most forms of philosophi- 
cal Monism has been a certain levity in the use of the con- 
ception of identity. The effort of the advocates of monistic 
tenets has been to establish this conception, with all the 
invincible force of a strictly logical demonstration, in exclu- 
sive command over the sphere of all relations between the 
world and God. The effort of objectors lias been to show 
that this conception of identity, when applied to these rela- 
tions, weakens, or disregards, or destroys certain ethical and 
religious facts and truths of great value. In most cases of 
dispute over this form of Monism, there has been need of a 
prior critical discussion of the conception itself, on the part 
both of advocates and of objectors. Now, in matters of real- 
ity, whether of physical fact and law or of mental life, 
"identity" never applies as a strictly logical equivalence, 
whether between existences or between events. 1 Employed 

' See the discussion in the "Philosophy of Knowledge," chap. ix. 



526 A THEORY OF REALITY 

upon this subject, the principle only exhorts the disputants : 
" Stick to the same meanings for your terms, the World and 
the Absolute." But the very effort to do this introduces 
inevitably the same fundamental distinctions, and so brings 
on anew a discussion of relations, as though the mind could 
not possibly indicate precisely the same conceptions by the 
two phrases. 

On the other hand, a critical estimate of the principle of 
identity, as this principle applies to all knowledge and to all 
theory, shows that these two assumptions enter into its appli- 
cability : " The Self is a life comformable to law, and main- 
taining its identity by this conformity;" and, " The principles 
of Reality not-my-self and the principles of my thinking 
must be the same." The principle of identity only secures 
self -consistency ; it can never be converted into the form 
of a synthetic judgment applicable to a complex of actual 
known objects. 

Whenever, then, any form of philosophical Monism attempts 
to express the relations of the world to the Absolute in 
terms of the principle of identity, its attempt must always 
move in the sphere of barren abstractions. On the contrary, 
the problem offered by the attempt to conceive of the rela- 
tions between the world and the Absolute must always have 
its answer based upon actual knowledge of what known reali- 
ties are, and of what they implicate. It can, therefore, never 
become a problem whose solution, or even whose discussion, 
is purely a priori; its answer cannot be set forth in strictly 
logical fashion, after the pattern of Spinoza or even of Hegel. 

But the arguments urged against philosophical Monism are 
too often not well taken or judiciously expressed on this 
point. If God is not to be conceived of as the Absolute, 
then there is some part of the world which does not belong 
to Him, which is not God's world — though what sort of 
things or selves they are that are not in and of God's world, 
human thought cannot even conjecture. Moreover, if we deny 



THE WORLD AND THE ABSOLUTE 527 

that the principle of identity applies to these two conceptions, 
in such manner as to separate by our denial the Absolute from 
the world, as to remove God — whether in respect of space, 
or time, or power, or co-conscious cognition — from any par- 
ticular existence or actual event, we so far forth destroy 
the rational grounds of ethics and religion. For the " imma- 
nence " of the Absolute in the world is the one central tenet, 
as it were, of all systematic metaphysics. It is virtually this 
truth which all the critical discussion of the categories sus- 
tains and unfolds. It is virtually this truth which the analy- 
sis of this chapter justifies and expands. It is virtually this 
truth which all the theory of reality maintains. This theory 
itself is the form of monistic philosophy which is summarized 
in the following statements : all the objects of the world have 
for their Subject the Absolute ; all the relatively independent 
centres of self-activity, of the forthputting and reception of 
forces, of causal action and influence, have their Ground in 
the Will of the Absolute ; and all the forms, laws, and ideal 
ends of the world are realizations of the Ideas of the 
Absolute. 

The development of the positive sciences involves the 
increasing conviction that the unification of the complex 
results of man's accumulating experience with things is possi- 
ble. This is man's growing knowledge of the world. Philos- 
ophy, in its branch of metaphysics, shows that this possibility 
implies that Unity of Reality which the mind of man con- 
ceives of as an Absolute Self, whose most essential character- 
istics entitle us to call it Spirit. It belongs to the philosophy 
of the Ideal, to the reflective study of Ethics, ^Esthetics, 
and Religion to expand and to defend the doctrine as to 
the nature of Infinite Spirit, and as to the more ideal 
relations which man sustains to this Spirit. 

It is not necessary to follow in detail the truths, half- 
truths, and erroneous confusion which accompany every 
attempt to regard the Absolute as merely an unconscious, 



528 A THEORY OF REALITY 

wow-mental, mechanical process, to be identified throughout 
with the descriptive history of the world's evolution in time 
and space. This is the form of the emanation theory which 
has been assumed, on the basis of scientific discoveries, in 
modern times. It is enough at present to say that this 
attempt inevitably brings on the same contest over ambigu- 
ous conceptions, the same necessity for making unalterable 
distinctions, the same demand for a thorough criticism of 
the categories, as prerequisites of any defensible theory of 
reality. Can the world emanate, or evolve, from its Self, 
unless this Being of the World be construed in such manner 
as to relate It to its own processes of Becoming as the one, 
sufficient Ground of them all ? And what is the real nature 
of a being that can sustain such relations ? But the answer 
to these questions is precisely that which has been framing 
itself from the beginning to the end of this book. The valid 
conceptions of selfhood and of evolution, or an orderly and 
rational process of becoming, as applied to the sum-total of 
man's cognitive experience, have been chiefly influential in 
all its discussions. 



CHAPTER XX 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 

The last Chapter brought to its close the discussion of 
certain psychological and philosophical problems which has 
been prolonged during a number of years. These problems 
all concern themselves in a general way with the following 
question : " What, in reliance upon the cognitive experience 
of all men and upon the assured results of the positive 
sciences, can we be said to know about the Nature of Reality ? 
A brief statement of the opinions reached by so prolonged 
and varied a study seems appropriate at this point. It also 
seems not inappropriate that the impersonal attitude which 
has characterized the discussion hitherto should give way to 
that more familiar mode of intercourse which, in philo- 
sophical writings, is ordinarily confined to the Preface. In 
a word, I ask that the following Summary of Conclusions 
may be received as a privileged communication ; that through 
it I may enter into those friendly personal relations with my 
readers, under which, without incurring the suspicion of 
egotism, thoughtful men like to submit to one another their 
most cherished reflections. 

Some fifteen or twenty years ago there appeared to me to 
be much greater likelihood than now appears, that the move- 
ment to establish a study of the psychical life of man from 
the experimental, chemico-phvsical, and physiological points 
of view would result in a profound modification of the views 
hitherto current. This modification seemed likely to extend 
not only to the doctrine of the soul's nature, but also to all of 

those philosophical tenets which are naturally and necessarily 

34 



530 A THEORY OF REALITY 

dependent upon the general conclusions of psychology. It 
was after a considerable period of time, fully occupied with 
experimental research, with reading of many books, and with 
painstaking reflection, that I published (in 1887) a work 
entitled " Elements of Physiological Psychology." During 
the period of its preparation, and at the date of its publica- 
tion, the situation may be briefly described in the following 
sentences quoted from its Preface : " There can be no doubt 
that an important movement has arisen in recent times 
through the effort to approach the phenomena of mind from 
the experimental and physiological point of view. . . . Some 
writers have certainly indulged in extravagant claims as to 
the past triumphs of so-called Physiological Psychology, and 
in equally extravagant expectations as to its future discoveries. 
On the other hand, a larger number, perhaps, have been 
inclined either to fear or to depreciate every attempt to 
mingle the methods, laws, and speculations of the physical 
sciences with the study of the human soul. These latter 
apparently anticipate that some discovery in the localization 
of cerebral function, or in psychometry, may jeopard the 
birthright of man as a spiritual and rational being." Not 
sympathizing with either of these extremes of expectation and 
of fear, yet having upon my mind both the philosophical and 
the ethical and religious interests involved, I undertook the 
requisite course of investigation. On entering upon the task 
I freed myself, as far as possible, from prejudice ; and I 
summoned to its execution all the industry, judgment, and 
resources at my command. 

The conclusions to which a study of man's mental life from 
the physiological and experimental point of view led me 
were summarized in the Third Part of my book, under the 
heading, "The Nature of the Mind." Briefly expressed, 
these conclusions left the popular dualism standing unshaken 
in its fundamental positions, although with a greatly altered 
scientific exactness of statement and with an added evalu- 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 531 

ation. The reality of the human body, considered as a molec- 
ular mechanism, connected by a great variety of chemico- 
physical laws and forces with the world of Nature, and yet 
standing in peculiar, and even unique, relations to the Mind, 
remained unimpaired. But the unity, the reality, and the 
causal efficiency of the mind remained even more clearly 
manifest, both as an original assumption of all psycho- 
physical researches and also as a conclusion progressively 
established by those researches. 

Moreover, it then seemed, and it has always seemed, to 
me that these two realities, so intimately and wonderfully 
related, positively will not submit to having the truth about 
their relations told in terms of a theory of psycho-physical 
parallelism. I have, therefore, remained from the first a 
determined and consistent opponent of this theory. I still 
regard its downfall as its inevitable doom at the hands of 
psycho-physical science. The rather did the body and mind 
of man appear to be at the end of all purely scientific investi- 
gation, in fact, just what, antecedent to any investigation, 
" common-sense " supposes them to be. To science, as to 
common-sense, body and mind appear to be real and variously 
interrelated existences, which, by their combined causal 
efficiency somehow build up the unity of a manifold Self. 
Or, — to quote again from the same work, — " The subject of 
all the states of consciousness is a real unit-being, called 
Mind ; which is of non-material nature, and acts and develops 
according to laws of its own, but is specially correlated with 
certain material molecules and masses forming the substance 
of the brain." To say essentially the same thing from the 
evolutionary point of view : " The development of Mind can 
only be regarded as the progressive manifestation in con- 
sciousness of the life of a real being which, although taking 
its start and direction from the action of the physical elements 
of the body, proceeds to unfold powers that are sui generis, 
according to laws of its own." 



532 A THEORY OF REALITY 

As to the more particular nature of that real connection 
which both the popular impressions and the postulates of 
psycho-physical research assume to exist between brain and 
mind, I showed in the treatise just mentioned, that modern 
scientific studies and discoveries do not essentially alter these 
impressions and these postulates. " The assumption that the 
mind is a real being, which can be acted upon by the brain, 
and which can act on the body through the brain, is the only 
one compatible with all the facts of experience." This is 
true, however the facts of experience are garnered ; whether 
from the behavior of the general mental life under the most 
ordinary conditions, or from the more guarded and artificial 
activities of the subjects of laboratory experimentation. The 
theories of materialism, of psychological idealism, of occasion- 
alism, of pre-established harmony, " and all similar theories, 
do not in the least assist us to escape the difficulties which" 
attach themselves to every conception of causation," when 
applied to the relations of brain and mind. On the other 
hand, there is nothing which science knows " about the 
nature of material beings and the laws of their relation to 
each other, or about the nature of spiritual beings and their 
possible relation to material beings, or about the nature of 
causal efficiency, whether in the form of so-called physical 
energy or in that of activity in consciousness, which forbids 
the use of the causal conception in this connection." 

In a word, so far as the metaphysical conceptions of 
" reality," " unity," " interaction," " causal efficiency," etc., 
are concerned, whether taken into his work as assumptions, 
or derived from his work as conclusions, the student of 
physiological and experimental psychology has nothing es- 
sential to change, and little to learn. Psychology, pursued 
by experimental methods, does bestow much valuable inform- 
ation as to what sort of realities and unities both body and 
mind are ; and as to what are the more precise formulas for 
the almost infinite variety of interactions, or causal relations, 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 533 

which constantly take place between the two. But a scientific 
empirical psychology ends where it begins ; — namely, with 
the use of those uncriticised but valid conceptions which all 
men employ with more or less of intelligent meaning when 
speaking upon the same subjects. Neither a materialistic nor 
a spiritualistic monism, and even less a theory of psycho- 
physical parallelism, derives any sufficient support or comfort 
from a scientific study of the phenomena of human conscious- 
ness when undertaken from the physiological and experi- 
mental points of view. Such a psychological investigation, if 
true to what it finds, remains upon the basis of a common- 
sense dualism to the very last. And such a naive dualism 
understands the terms, " body," " mind," and " relation of the 
two," in the metaphysical meaning which, without subjecting 
it to a thorough criticism, I elaborated, in the concluding 
chapters of the " Elements of Physiological Psychology." 

By no means all the processes of the mental life, however, 
and not even all the elements of any of the developed mental 
processes, admit of treatment from the physiological and 
experimental point of view. How true this is at present, 
any one can understand who will compare with the depth and 
breadth and wealth of content which actuality presents, the 
thin and meagre description of the nature and development 
of the mind which a strict adherence to this point of view per- 
mits. He is a poor and pitiful soul, indeed, who has no more in 
real experience than the use of laboratory methods can detect 
and depict. This statement tends, not toward the deprecia- 
tion of the workman in experimental psychology, but rather to 
the fuller appreciation of any work, pursued by any method, 
which will advance the details of so complex and difficult a 
science as is the psychology of man. 

It was with such convictions in mind that the investigations 
were pursued (both contemporaneously with, and subsequently 
to, those whose results were published in the " Elements," 
etc.) which I embodied in a work issued in 1894. This work 



534 A THEORY OF REALITY 

was entitled, " Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory." It 
aimed to give a fairly complete picture of the activities and 
the development of man's mental life, together with such ex- 
planations derived from all sources as the present state of the 
science makes possible. In this book, therefore, I treated 
not only the sensations and the more primary intellectual 
processes, but also the development of memory and imagina- 
tion, of thought and language, of reasoning, of the emotions 
and passions, the ethical and oesthetical sentiments, as well as 
the impulses, instincts, and desires, and the unfolding of 
character. Nor did it seem to me that psychology thus pur- 
sued, if faithful to its task of describing all the activities and 
laws of development belonging to mental life, could escape 
having something to say upon such universal conceptions as 
space, time, and causation ; and upon the cognition of Things 
and of Self. Chapters upon these topics, therefore, carried 
psychological discussion up to the very limits where philos- 
ophy receives it from the hands of psychology. 

In the concluding pages of the " Descriptive Psychology " 
I gathered together those more general statements concerning 
the nature and laws of the mind which the detailed study of 
its descriptive history seemed to make good. In presenting 
these conclusions it was admitted that an original nature, or 
derived potentiality, for the human soul is, after all, the 
assumption which underlies all our attempts at the particulars 
of a true story of its actual development. " In the beginning 
was Mind, already equipped to see and hear and remember 
and imagine and think." Yet " there are, it would seem, 
certain principles which belong to all development of the men- 
tal life of man ; and every stage of consciousness, and every 
form of so-called faculty, in every stage of its formation, 
appears to conform to these principles." Among such prin- 
ciples I recognized the following four: The principle of Con- 
tinuity, the principle of Relativity, the principle of Solidarity, 
and the principle of Teleological Import. By the first of 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 535 

these it was intended to emphasize the truth that the real 
life of every mind is a connected and interdependent process 
of becoming. " The very nature of the mind, so far as science 
can observe it, is seen in this unbroken vital flow. Its being 
is in being just such an uninterrupted stream of psychic life." 
With this principle is closely connected the principle of rela- 
tivity. " Every individual element, or state, or form of 
mental life, is what it is only as relative to other elements, 
states, and forms of the same mental life." Or combining the 
two principles we are compelled to regard the true picture of 
mental life as that of " a continuance of interdependent psy- 
choses." Thus " descriptive psychology ends in adopting the 
conception of a being with a unique unity of nature and an 
equally unique history of development." 

In spite of the elasticity and changeable quality which the 
mind of the individual man possesses, when regarded as a 
series of interconnected processes of becoming, the whole of 
mental life has a certain solidarity and unity of character and 
aim, and not simply a unity in the successions of a comparable 
time-series. For " the effect of every partial or complete 
working of the psychic mechanism is felt upon the weal or 
the woe of the whole mental development ; and this develop- 
ment necessarily tends toward some kind of unification of 
result. Such is a brief statement of the principle of solidarity 
as applied to the life of the mind. It is under the action of 
this principle that the original vague and relatively plastic 
unity of disposition, instincts, impulses, etc., becomes the 
more clearly crystallized and definitively shaped unity of a 
" character." But throughout the descriptive history of the 
mind we notice traces of the teleological principle, " Activity 
to some end is the ruling principle of mental development. 
The self-conscious, intelligent adoption of a plan, and selec- 
tion of means for its pursuit, is distinctive of the acme of 
man's development. The more comprehensive this plan, and 
the wiser the selection of means, the higher is the standing 



536 A THEORY OF REALITY 

of the individual in the scale that measures the development 
of Mind." 

" In fine, a combination of all these principles, as they appear 
in their actual operation, secures for every so-called stream of 
consciousness that continuity, related action, solidarity of 
character, and that intelligible import as judged by the light 
of ends and ideals, which are necessary to the history of what 
we call a Soul, or a Mind." 

But all psychological treatises, even when they advance 
into the field of metaphysics somewhat further than the 
modern conceptions of psychological science seem to warrant, 
leave many of their most important conceptions and principles 
in a quite unsatisfactory condition. This was admittedly and 
designedly true of those treatises to which reference has just 
been made. The conclusion had, indeed, been reached, that 
the science of mental phenomena and the development of 
mental life both assumes and also confirms, expands, and 
clarifies a certain metaphysical conception of Mind. This 
conception regards every mind as an active, real, and unitary 
being, which stands in a variety of reciprocal causal rela- 
tions to a material body ; and which, together with this body, 
constitutes a complex and looser unity called the Self, that 
through the body, sustains all its relations to a Nature which 
is known as " not-itself." But herein is involved a number 
of conceptions that demand further reflective treatment, and 
a more thorough criticism. 

What is it for the mind to be " real," to be " unitary," to 
stand in " causal " or other " relations " with the body ? And 
what, if anything, follows from the answer to these questions 
which has an important bearing on inquiries as to the origin, 
destiny, and place in nature of man's mind ? It was to the 
solution of such problems as these that I attempted to make 
some slight contribution in a book entitled, " Philosophy of 
Mind" (or, " An Essay in the Metaphysics of Psychology "), 
1895. With reference to the relations always existing 



SUMMARY AXD COXCIXSIOX 537 

between the science of psychology and the metaphysics of 
mental life and men:.,- development. I showed in the open- 
ing chapters of this book that only two positions are tenable. 
The first of these positions assumes and maintains through- 
out that common-sense dualism which, as had already been 
shown, is unimpaired by the facts of psychological science. 
The second approaches the science with a frankly avowed 
metaphysical standpoint, and then either modifies or strength- 
ens this standpoint by the measure of success which the 
theory displays in its treatment of the phenomena. In 
these opening chapters I strove to make it clear, by a thorough 
criticism of selected examples, that neither the theory of 
naturalism (or materialism), nor that of a solipsistic idealism. 
nor that of psycho-physical parallelism, succeeds in remain- 
ing honestly and frankly consistent with itself, while at the 
same time dealing in a scientific way with the phenomena of 
Mind. 

Now the " final aim of psychology is to understand the 
nature and development, in its relations to other beings, of that 
unique kind of being which we call the Soul or Mind."* But 
•• philosophy seeks a unitary conception of the real world that 
shall be freed, as far as possible, from internal contradictions 
and based upon all the facts of nature and of human life."' 
So. then, psychology, although, when considered as the science 
of mental phenomena and of mental development, it is not 
co-extensive either in range, method, or conclusiveness, with 
philosophy, is. nevertheless, the proper propaedeutic to all 
philosophy, and especially to the doctrine of the Self. "In 
particular, the problems of philosophy all emerge and force 
themselves upon the mind in the attempt thoroughly to com- 
prehend and satisfactorily to solve the problems of a scientific 
psychology ; and the attempts along the different main lines 
of research in psychology to deal scientifically with its pro! - 
lems all lead up to the place where this science hands these 
same problems over to philosophy,"' 



538 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Starting with that "Concept of Mind" which man's most 
incontestable cognitive experience validates, I showed that 
it is totally misrepresented by those psychologists who re- 
gard the mind merely " content-wise," as a temporary aggre- 
gate of sensations, images, etc., in an ever-flowing stream of 
consciousness. For " every state of consciousness is not only 
capable of being regarded on the side of passive content of 
consciousness, — it must also be regarded on the side of active 
discriminating consciousness ; " and, indeed, " consciousness 
regarded as objectively discriminated, and consciousness 
regarded as discriminating activity, are only two sides, as it 
were, of one and the same consciousness." In fine, " all 
psychic life manifests itself to the subject of that life as 
being, in one of its fundamental aspects, its own spontaneous 
activity." It is this cognitive experience of being a " Self-alive" 
from which we take all our starting 8, and to which we con- 
stantly return again, in every process of conceiving a " human 
mind." 

When, now, philosophy proceeds to inquire concerning that 
reality and unity of being which the mind has, it can only 
discover and accept as final the answer which lies not afar 
off, but is before us in every act of the life of self-con- 
sciousness. " The reality of mental life consists in actual 
mentality ; it is the really being self-conscious, self-active, 
knowing, remembering, and thinking, as Mind." Its realest 
being is its " Being-for-itself." When, however, the philoso- 
phy of mind attempts to understand the reality of mind in 
accordance with an intelligible conception of identity for the 
Self, and a real permanence in time, it encounters the un- 
doubted fact of change. The conception of self-identity can- 
not, therefore, be held in a form contradictory to the fact of 
change. On the contrary, " changes heighten rather than 
diminish the reality and validity of the consciousness of 
identity properly described and understood." Indeed, " actu- 
ally to be self-conscious and to remember recognitively is to 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 539 

be conscious of being identical and self-same." But what is 
required for the highest kind of real identity of the mind, and 
for an actual mental development, is to remain true to some 
chosen ideal. For of that unitary being we call a mind, this 
is emphatically true : * ; its reality is. under all circumstances 
and forever, a reality which must be realized in its own 
peculiar way. in order to maintain itself at all." 

In brief, the reality, self-identity, and unity, of man's mind 
consists in its actually being a self-conscious Will, recogni- 
tiveiy remembering its own past, actively thinking itself into 
a unitary Life, and pursuing by intelligently chosen ends its 
own ideal aims. Of such actual being of a soul, different 
men partake in far different degrees, according as they more 
or less perfectly realize the conception of a Soul. 

It is not necessary even to summarize the conclusions of 
the detailed discussion which followed, concerning the rela- 
tions, in actuality, between mind and body. This discussion 
occupied the later chapters of the ,; Philosophy of Mind." 
Its conclusions all tended toward the vindication anew of the 
•• principle of causation " as applying to these relations. But 
the discussion also showed that this principle itself has its 
own birth, and its ovrn most ultimate explanation, in the 
undoubted knowledge which the Self has of itself in its chang- 
ing relations to things. The ultimate and mysterious fact 
of interaction, which has its primary source in our experience 
as a total complex of actively and passively moulded phases 
of consciousness, neither of itself abrogates the reality of the 
interacting existences nor impairs the unity of man's experi- 
ence of the World. " For partially, and often chiefly or even 
almost exclusively, the explanation of the interaction of every 
two beings is to be found in the so-called • nature ' of the 
beings which interact: that is, the interaction itself is recog- 
nized as a mode of behavior which admits of no further expla- 
nation than the self-activity of the beings which interact." 

When, however, we come to consider the - Place of Man's 



540 A THEORY OF REALITY 

Mind in Nature," this duality of body and mind in the unity of 
one Self, and this multiplicity constituted by every individual 
self in all its known or conceivable relations with other selves 
and with things, and the infinite multiplicity of things thus 
more or less intimately related to each self, must be harmon- 
ized in some way. The need arises for an explanation of 
the totality of our cognitive experience in some higher 
and more Ultimate Unity. Such a unity certainly is not 
furnished by the vague or purely negative conception of a third 
something which is neither body nor mind. For all modern 
science agrees that the body, considered as a part of nature, 
must be held to come under the chemico-physical principles 
which define the being, and control the changes, of other 
material things. Man's body is of the earth, earthy. This 
is not said to its despite or depreciation. For nature is 
somehow, when rightly understood, seen to be expressive of 
a yet larger and more mysterious selfhood than that which 
any man can claim to possess or fully to comprehend. Man 
as placed in Nature, both body and mind, one Self, belongs, 
together with all other selves and things, to the Being of the 
World. And the " Being of the World, of which all particu- 
lar beings are but parts (not in any spatial significance of 
this word), must then be so conceived of as that in It can be 
found the one Ground of all interrelated existences and 
activities. Thus does the philosophy of Mind open before us 
the larger problems of the philosophy of all existences, of the 
' Being of the World.' " 

At this point in the serious reflective study of man's cogni- 
tive experience it customarily is that our confidence in our 
conclusions begins to be disturbed. That man may attain 
something approaching a descriptive science of the phenomena 
of his own mental life and mental development as an individ- 
ual mind, it is not easy to doubt. If one will avoid the phil- 
osophical mysticism which uses language legitimately derived 
from, and interpretable into, terms of experience, in the ille- 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 541 

gitimate and vain effort to set forth what lies outside of all 
possible experience, then one may attain some sort of a Phil- 
osophy of Mind. If one seeks, not the reality, the unity, the 
self-identity, and the relations to other realities of an unap- 
proachable Bing-an-Sich of a soul, but the actuality, unity, 
self-identity, and actual relationships of the self-knowing 
man, then one may find valid answers to one's questions. 
But what invincible opposition, what wholly insurmountable 
obstacles, may not a reasonable agnosticism offer to even the 
first attempts at a metaphysical inquiry into the " Being of 
the World"! 

Doubtless, different students of the profounder problems 
which are proposed by the experience of man with himself 
and with things come to the sceptical halting, or to the en- 
trenched position of agnosticism, at quite different points 
along their faltering. Probably, in fact, most men become 
fixedly agnostic at the point where they get tired of reflective 
thinking. And the history of philosophy seems to show that 
somewhat of the same experience characterizes the reflective 
thinking of the race. But consider sympathetically the posi- 
tion in which I found myself as an apparently logical conclu- 
sion, a definitively scientific resultant, of all my preceding 
investigations in psychology and philosophy. I had studied 
the life of the Mind, originally approaching it from the physi- 
ological and experimental points of view. But this study had 
left the problems of its reality and unity, and of its actual 
causal correlations with the body, unchanged in their essential 
character and unimpaired in their validity. In attempting 
further the solution of these metaphysical problems, I had 
found myself irresistibly carried along into all the larger 
problems of a cosmical metaphysics. After all, this is only 
saying that the scientific investigation of man's mental life 
had issued just where every scientific investigation issues, in 
the great and deep ocean of the World's Universal Life. In 
trying to understand my own mental being, I had found this 



542 A THEORY OF REALITY 

being intelligible to itself, only as causally related to the physi- 
cal changes of the body, and through them to the Being of 
the World. In a word, I had found my selfhood inextricably 
interwoven with this Being of the World ; and yet, in just 
that way and in no other, did I have all the reality, unity, 
self-identity, and power for good or evil, which I actually 
possessed. But when such an all-inclusive ontological prob- 
lem is thus definitely presented to the mind of the reflective 
thinker of to-day, he cannot easily so far escape from the 
Zeitgeist as not to raise the previous question. And the 
previous question is the epistemological problem. 

Can man Jcnoiv Reality ? — the reality that is objective, in 
the sense of being extra-mentdl and not to be identified with 
a passing phase of the knower's mind. For let it not be for- 
gotten that the existence and the characteristics of such real- 
ity are implicated in the fundamental duality of self and 
not-self, causally related. And this duality had been found 
to constitute both the underlying assumption and the final 
conclusion of a scientific psychology. But this duality itself 
could be accounted for only as a part of the problem of a 
higher and more comprehensive Unity of Reality. 

The answer to the problem of the " Being of the World," 
on its epistemological side — the question, namely, as to the 
possibility, nature, and limits of man's knowledge as bearing 
on the problem of reality — took the final form of a book pub- 
lished in 1897 on the " Philosophy of Knowledge." In its 
Preface I ventured to speak of my work as that of a " pioneer " 
among recent writers in English on psychology and philos- 
ophy. The word was, of course, not intended to embody the 
claims of a discoverer, but rather the embarrassments and 
difficulties of one who has for his task the clearing away of 
obstacles, — and this, in the wish and the hope that his suc- 
cessors may thereby find easier paths made ready for them. 
It still seems to me, as it did then, that while English psy- 
chology and philosophy has been very fruitful in works on 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 543 

Logic, and fairly so in works on Metaphysics, it has for a long 
time neither accomplished nor attempted the problem of a true 
ErkenntnisstJieorie. It was the effort to examine the experi- 
ence of the common life of man as a knower, from the stand- 
point of a modern science of psychology and with a view to 
disclose and to test its fundamental assumptions, which I 
desired to make. 

In the " Philosophy of Knowledge " I stated the problem 
before me in the following terms : — "a philosophical criti- 
cism of knowledge, with a view to point out its origin and 
nature as implicating reality ; to validate it by reducing to 
their simplest terms and arranging in a harmonious whole its 
necessary forms, its assumptions, and its postulates ; and to 
mark out its limits by further criticism and especially by dis- 
tinguishing the sources and kinds of error and of half-truth." 
The inquiry into the nature of knowledge was introduced by 
a brief critical survey of the history of opinion and of the 
results of psychological analysis. This history seemed to me 
to evince the impossibility of discrediting the cognitive facul- 
ties of man, and then saving to knowledge, or to faith, or to 
practical postulates, some specially favored kind of cognition. 
Neither do I believe that the foundations of the " plain man's 
consciousness " can be undermined by showing its objects to 
be " appearances," and confidence still be reserved in the 
"reality" set forth by some towering superstructure of spec- 
ulative thought. The principle of self-consistency is of the 
last importance to reason. It is, in fact, only one form of 
stating the undying self-confidence of reason itself. 

I intended to show by psychological analysis that cognition 
is not mere intellection ; and that the activity of something 
more than the logical processes is indispensable to the origin 
and growth of man's cognitive experience. On the one hand, 
there is no knowledge without thought ; knowledge is born of 
thinking, which has arrived at the pausing place of a judgment, 
— a finished product of the mind's synthetic activity. On the 



544 A THEORY OF REALITY 

other hand, the result can be called " knowledge " only upon 
the supposition that the judgments which enter into the pro- 
cesses of reasoning have something far other than mere cor- 
rectness of form. Every judgment of the cognitive order — 
whether true or false — implicates the assumption : "What is 
subjectively united in my act of judging belongs together in 
the unity of a really existent world." Moreover, any search- 
ing analysis shows that feeling and willing enter into every 
cognition, as essential " moments " of it, — of whatever sort 
the cognition analyzed may be. Feeling is not external to cog- 
nition ; nor is it mere impulse or influence to cognition ; it is 
also an inseparable factor of every cognitive act. The cogni- 
tive judgment is reached under the influence of subtle forms 
of affective consciousness ; and it is distinguished as cognitive 
only as it is more or less tinged with emotional content. 

But especially true is it of man's experience as a knower, 
that it comes to him only as ceaselessly active, as a restless, 
striving, and achieving Will. In a word, man's whole self is 
concerned in all his cognitive experience ; knowledge is an atti- 
tude of the whole self toward reality ; growth in knowledge is 
dependent, for every man, upon the characteristic development 
taken by his entire self. So that, in no unmeaning use of the 
words, cognition must be considered as a quasi-ethicvl achieve- 
ment involving all the so-called faculties of man. 

In the later chapters of this book I went on to show that 
ethical and gesthetical momenta enter even into the so- 
called " scientific " knowledge of mankind. So that the 
schism between the ethical and the cognitive man, which 
Kant attempted in the interests of morals and religion, can 
no more be perpetuated or justified than can the schism which 
Mr. Bradley has set forth, in the interests of metaphysical 
theory, amidst and between the " plain man's " cognitive con- 
sciousness of so-called " appearances " and his own specula- 
tive construction of " Reality." 

If, however, we proceed to divide human cognitions accord- 



STMMARY AXD CONCLUSION -Z-L5 

ing to the most fundamental differences in their objects, there 
arc tw ] main classes to be considered. These two are the 
-Knowledge of Things and the Knowledge of Self." As to 
the character and amounts of the ontological implicates in both, 
they diner in very important respects. Out of the same roots 
of man's total experience there emerges, by the active processes 
of knowledge, the most fundamental of all our distinctions in 
the kinds ;: Being. This distinction itself has its origin in the 
nature of the mind as related to other realities : and yet the 
distinction can never be realized except as the mind itself, by 
its own discriminating, segregating, and unifying activities, 
brings it to pass. It is born in knowledge ; it is inseparable 
b >m knowledge : and it is both the assumption of every cog- 
nition and also the conclusion to which every cognition returns. 
For the reality of the subject and the reality of the object, and 
the actuality of that relation between subject and object which 
is essential to knowledge, are an indubitable cognitive experi- 
ence. That I. the knower, really am. and that my object really 
is. and that subject and object actually stand in this unique 
relation — all this is only to enumerate the implicates of every 
particular act of knowledge. 

"VThen. however, the object of my cognition is some Thiug 
and not simply some state of the Self, what I know or know 
about the object is :: a different order, evaluation, and accepted 
validity. Perception of things by the senses — the envisage- 
ment of the not-self — believes, indeed, and must believe, in 
itself as an indubitable experience of the trans-subjective. 
But - while the knowledge of Self may attain an intuitive 
penetration to the heart of Reality, the knowledge of Things 
remains an analogical interpretation of their apparent behavior 
intc tern.- of a real nature corresponding, in important char- 
acteristics, to our own." Thus loes the self-like nature of 
things, as known to man. seem to be an integral part of the 
assumptions necessary to all the self's knowledge of things. 

Further light is thrown upon this contention by an examina- 

35 



546 A THEORY OF REALITY 

tion of the degrees and limits of knowledge. For I went on 
to show that there are degrees of that realized attitude of 
men toward what is actual, which we are accustomed to call 
" knowledge ; " and that these degrees are to be measured by 
a certain ideal standard of perfection. "The immediate 
knowledge of the Self by itself is, in actuality, the realized 
ideal of knowledge." And as the different kinds and branches 
of the experience of man as a knower draw nearer to, or re- 
cede farther away from, this central light, they gain or lose in 
the certainty of knowledge. For it is with myself, as in active 
changing relations, to my Self and to that which I can only 
recognize as " the Other," that actuality abides. Transcend- 
ent entities and principles, made use of in the interests of ex- 
plaining experience in general, must therefore be derived from 
a basis of concrete experiences with acknowledged actualities. 

The figurative words " derived from a basis of concrete ex- 
periences," and all similar phrases, suggest the part which 
reasoning plays in the growth of human knowledge. A phil- 
osophy of knowledge must, therefore, examine critically the 
postulates of all reasoning, with a view to see what they tell 
us as to the validity of all our mediate knowledge. Science, 
in all its branches, is a matter of mediate and derived cogni- 
tions. These logical postulates of all mediate knowledge are 
the so-called " Principle of Identity and Difference " and the 
" Principle of Sufficient Reason," — as considered from the 
epistemological points of view. By a realistic criticism of 
these postulates I showed that, according to their very nature 
and universal application, they amount to this conviction : 
" The principles of all Reality — including reality not-my-Self 
— and the principles of my thinking must be the same." 

As for the Principle of Identity, it appeared to me signifi- 
cant of the self's recognition of its own presuppositionless 
form of mental life, when in the act of judging cognitively. 
In this meaning of the words, at least a momentary self- 
identity is the predicate which knowledge assigns to all that is 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 547 

judged really to exist. But this principle, when taken into 
connection with the universal fact of change, guarantees the 
continued existence of every concrete reality as a series of 
" s<? //-produced " but " o^er-related " changes, which are con- 
formable to law, and which maintain the identity of the par- 
ticular reality only by such conformity. This, it seems to me, 
is to conceive of every Thing as being real by virtue of its self- 
consistency after the pattern of the self-identical Self. 

The practical efficiency of that law of mental life which, 
subjectively regarded, is called the " Principle of Sufficient 
Reason, " depends upon the mind's rational determination to 
reach the goal of knowledge — namely, the establishment of 
causal relations that have truth in reality. But " causality " 
is itself no invincible bond that, in a quasi-external way, seizes 
hold of things and forces them into a Unity. It is, the 
rather, a way of conceiving the " Being of the World " after the 
analogy of the Life of a Self, as a striving toivard a completer 
self-realization under the consciously accepted motif of imma- 
nent Ideas. The principle, as a postulate of all reasoning, 
and so of all science, implies, (1) some sort of unitary Being 
for the really existent ; (2) that this Being is Will ; (3) that 
the differentiation of the activity of this Will, and the connec- 
tion of the differentiated " momenta," — the separate beings of 
the world, — is teleological and rational, like that of our own 
Self. 

Thus, in all its work of generalization and inference, I 
saw that the mind of man carries over to its concepts the 
potencies of feeling and will with which the Self knows itself 
to be endowed, and which it analogically feels obliged to rec- 
ognize as essential to the being of Things. 

When we bring ourselves frankly and courageously to face 
the difficulties which the current agnosticism opposes to our 
confidence in human knowledge, we find them to be quite 
other than those with which it is customary to conjure. As 
to the possibility of transcending experience and so reaching 



548 A THEORY OF REALITY 

the Real, I showed that in the meaning of the words as 
employed by the agnostic argument experience is always and 
necessarily transcended by knowledge. Indeed, the very 
question whicli agnosticism too often neglects to consider, 
and which it must always fail to answer, is precisely this : 
" Why does experience, in order to explain itself, need to tran- 
scend itself as mere fact ? " For without actually reaching and 
grasping, by all those potencies of the soul which the act of 
cognition involves, the real conditions, universal laws, and re- 
lated entities of the Self and of Things, we cannot even form 
the conception of human (cognitive) " experience." Some criti- 
cal estimate of the ontological implicates of knowledge is, in- 
deed, a necessary part of every critical theory of knowledge. 
But this very estimate shows us a transcendent Real, present in 
experience, whenever the life of consciousness becomes a com- 
pleted act of knowledge. If we inquire as to how this can be, 
we find that the entire complex condition of the subject, in the 
act of cognition, involves and guarantees the Being of the trans- 
subjective existent. Inasmuch, however, as all knowledge of 
the nature and transactions of the non-self is analogical, a 
true and full knowledge of Self is the prime condition of a 
valid and ever larger knowledge of the ultimate nature and 
actual transactions of all Reality. 

I then went on to show in detail that neither scepticism, 
nor agnosticism, nor criticism, ought to shake man's confi- 
dence in the validity of his knowledge as involving this 
general ontological postulate : The Being of the World is 
some kind of a Unity, like that of the Self, because known to 
be self-differentiating in accordance with immanent Ideas. 
Alleged " antinomies," and alleged or genuine distinctions 
between truth and error, do not penetrate the heart of man's 
cognitive experience so as to let the life-blood out of this 
central source of all his potency as a knower of the truth of 
things. All the derived and subordinate " criteria of knowl- 
edge," so-called, are included in the persistent effort of the 



SOBIAEY AST) CONCLUSION 540 

individual and of the race to arrive at an harmonious and 
satisfactory experience that is based on this fundamental 
postulate. Every correct view of the nature, origin, limits, 
and implicates of man's cognitive powers has thus an 
undoubtedly important teleology. As we rise into the higher 
regions and dig down deeper about the foundations of human 
knowledge, the epistemological problem is answered by refer- 
ence to the aims of the Being that realizes the highest and 
oest conception of Life. " Cognition is part of the very life 
of the Self ; but it is not the whole of that life ; it serves that 
life in its striving after the realization of ideals. Thus are we 
prepared to contemplate the objects of man's cognition, not 
merely as interconnected beings and transactions obedient to 
law in bare fact, but also as moments in the Life of a Being 
that is actually realizing its own immanent ideas/' 

Finally, if one elects to pursue his agnostic doublings with 
a complete sincerity of feeling and with strict logical con- 
sistency, they lead him into that black gulf which has no 
light, no bottom, no discernible sides, no outlook upward ; in 
it. all forms of science and all practical cognitions, as well as 
ethical and religious faiths, are totally lost. This .is for the 
rational mind to perish utterly, through a seeming devotion to 
the exigencies of logic ; — while at the same time being guilty 
of the irrational from the epistemological point of view, and 
from the practical point of view, of coquetting and dissipating 
one's virility in companionship with the absurd. ,; Whereas, 
if we will once admit with hopeful intelligence and reasonable 
cheerfulness what we are bound to admit in some manner and 
to an indefinitely large extent. — namely, the correspondence 
or systematic relationship of the cognitive Self with that all- 
inclusive Reality which encompasses it. when conceived of as 
an Absolute Self. — then all the separate and subordinate 
forms of relation are taken up into and merged in a relation 
between the individual and the Universal — both cognized in 
terms of Self." For, essentially considered, knowledge is 



550 A THEORY OF REALITY 

a species of intercourse between selves. And if human cog- 
nitive experience is all relative to the knower, and of related 
things, it is none the less u the establishment of a relation 
between the Revealer, the Absolute Self, and the Self to whom 
the revelation comes." 

And now, in the discussions just closing, I have tried to 
show that the epistemological principles of my earlier book 
are confirmed by a critical examination of all those charac- 
teristics of Reality which all men, whether in the exercise 
of their naive cognitive powers or as acute and penetrat- 
ing students of the positive sciences, actually accept. My 
" Theory of Reality " is, in fact, the detailed ontological 
doctrine of that very assumption with which the philosophy 
of knowledge found all human experience, both ordinary and 
scientific, to be penetrated. All things and all selves are vir- 
tually understood by the knower, man, to belong to, to be man- 
ifestations of, dependencies upon, this Absolute Self. And 
developing self-consciousness, as well as the progressive seiz- 
ure of the truth of the reality of things, leads the mind of 
man to recognize that the ultimate Being of the World is its 
own indwelling and absolute spiritual Life, — the Life of a 
self-conscious Will and Mind which stands related to that 
complex of objects which are made known in all human 
experience, as their One and Ultimate Ground. 

Throughout these prolonged investigations into the nature 
of the Real I have steadily maintained my confidence in the 
unity of man's being, and in the Unity of Reality which phil- 
osophy aims to find and to expound. I cannot allow that 
there is a schism between the philosophy of the Real and the 
philosophy of the Ideal, between general metaphysics, with 
its two branches of the Philosophy of Nature and the Phil- 
osophy of Mind, and the metaphysics of Ethics, ^Esthetics, 
and of Religion. For man, as fitted for knowledge and for 
conduct, is one ; and the World, in which he thinks and acts 
and hopes and fears and dreams and prays and worships, is 



SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 551 

One. But the phenomena and principles of ethics, aesthetics, 
and religion have much more to tell us as to that Being of 
the World which is known to science in terms of the Absolute 
Self. Its higher spiritual characteristics, if such are to be 
found, must be discerned and harmonized by a critical reflec- 
tion which deals chiefly with the ideals of man. Not as 
though realities could either be, or be known, in separation 
from ideas ; or as though the Heal were not ideal, or the Ideal 
had no place in reality. Yet the whole being of man must 
tell its story, and find itself satisfied, if possible, in the phil- 
osophical conception of the Absolute. This conception, there- 
fore, must get its more spiritual content of truth and beauty 
from the study of Ethics, ^Esthetics, and the Philosophy of 
Religion. 



INDEX 



Absolute, the, mystical conception of, 
160 f., 450 f.; not the unrelated, 170 f., 
493 f., 497, 499 ; but the source of rela- 
tions, 170 f . ; and a system of relations, 
173 f., 333; as a life in time, 208 f., 
212 f.; and a Unitv, 335 f., 415 f. ; con- 
ceived of, as a Self, 397 f., 413 f., 415 f., 
418, 489 f. ; or as a material whole, 
456 f., 460 f., 509 f. ; relations of, to the 
World, 493 f., 501 f., 507, 509 f., 520 f., 
524 f. ; as source of relations, 499 f., 
507, 512 f . ; as omniscient, 501 f . 

Activity, as "core" of Being, 123 f., 
257 f . ; as essential to substance, 125 f. ; 
self-felt, the origin of the category of 
force, 257 f., 260 f . 

Actuality, as distinguished from phenom- 
ena, 34 f., 37 f., 42 f ., 46, 54 ; as applied 
to the Self, 39 f ., 42 f ., 481 f . ; of the 
Ideal, 473 f., 479 f. 

"Affinity,' 1 meaning of the chemical, 286. 

Anthropomorphism, as respects the cate- 
gory of force, 261 f.; and of forms and 
laws. 352 f., 354 f. ; and final purpose, 
372 f. 

Appearance (see "Phenomenon"). 

Aristotle, the title, "metaphysics," 16 f.; 
on motion, 226. 

Atomic Theory, metaphysics of, 442 f., 
444 f., 446. 

Axiom, nature of the, 307 f ., 311 f . 314 f . 

Bain, on force and matter, 437. 

Balfour, Mr., on the sesthetical element in 
metaphysics, 60. 

Becoming, Principle of (see Change). 

Being, of the particular, 111 f., 123 f., 
132 f. ; conception of the "pure," 112, 
122 f.; of "Things," 116 f. 

Berkeley, ontology of his idealism, 8, 97. 

Bernoulli, on actio in distans, 275. 

Boyle, on relation of experience to meta- 
physics, 28. 

Bradley, Mr., on reality and appearance, 
9 ; his doctrine of the categories, 104 f . ; 



and of the ground of cognition, 114; his 
doctrine of "self-consistency," 121 f., 
158, 323; on the concept of space, 229. 

Categories, the, as subject matter of 
metaphysics, 25 f.; Things as the har- 
mony of, 64 f., 84 f. ; enumeration of, 
67, 84 f., 162 f.; inseparable in reality, 
87 f., 395 f. ; but connected in cogni- 
tion, 88 f., 492 f. ; yet independent in 
characteristics, 94 f . ; and interrelated 
and united, 98 f . ; proofs of the unity of, 
106 f. ; as products of evolution, 222 f. 

Causality, conception of, 261 f., 266, 360 f. ; 
as applied to body and mind, 411 f.; 
the totality of Being as a Cause, 412 f., 
506 f., 509, 510 f. 

Cell, behavior of the, 287. 

Challis, Prof., on actio in distans, 275, 276. 

Change, as a category, 140; as a principle 
of Becoming, 141 f., 151 f., 154 f., 158; 
is actual, 141 f., 148 f. ; and matter of 
cognitive experience, 143 f., 148 f. ; as 
applied to Self, 143, 145 f.; and to 
Things, 143, 145 f . ; limitation of, 149 f . ; 
as in a system, 150 f. 

Clerk Maxwell, on the conception of 
energy, 272 f ., 282 f. ; and of matter, 
431 f., 433, 435. 

Criticism, its relations to metaphysics, 
7f. 

Cognition (see Knowledge). 

Cotta, on union of force and matter, 436. 

Descartes, his "First Law of Nature," 

433 f . 
Ding-an-Sich, conception of, 112 f ., 122 f . 
Du Bois-Reymond, on actio in distans, 

275; and union of force and matter, 

436 f. 
Duhring, on quantity of the World-mass, 

429. 

Energy, physical conception of, 269 f., 
278, 431 f. ; as "kinetic and potential," 



554 



INDEX 



278 f. : conservation and correlation of, 
280 f., 283 f.; the chemical, 285 f. 

Eucken, on hatred of metaphysics, 11. 

Evolution, conception of, requires "time," 
200 f. ; as applied to the categories, 
222 f. ; biological doctrine of, 377 f., 
379 f., 467 f ., 470 f . 

Experience, the cognitive, of Reality, 19 f., 
57 f., 61 f., 63 f., 68 f., 84 f., 114 f., 
143 f., 260 f.; unity of, 21 f.; relation 
of, to metaphysics, 28 f. 

Faraday, his conception of the atom, 
442 f. 

Final Purpose, conception of, in meta- 
physics, 363 f ., 384 f. ; differences of po- 
sition regarding, 363 f. ; in the World's 
course, 366 f., 380 f., 390 f. ; psycholog- 
ical genesis of, 369 f . ; application of, to 
the Self, 370 f . ; and to external Nature, 
374 f., 376 f., 386 f., relation of biology 
to, 377 f . ; objections to, 381 f. ; relation 
to mechanism, 384 f. 

Force, as a category, 94 f., 253 f ., 263 f ., 
269 f., 407 f. ; implied in the "occu- 
pancy" of space, 251 f. ; and in all the 
categories, 253 f ., 270 f. ; origin of con- 
ception of, 255 f., 260 f., 273 f . ; as " sub- 
stantial causality," 261 f., 266; physical 
conception of, 264 f., 269 f., 280 f. ; as 
implying unity, 270 f., 288 f., 407 ; 
distribution of, 272 f., 284 f . ; as actio in 
distans, 274 f., 276 f. 

Form, a category, 337 f.; genesis of con- 
ception of, 340; reality of, 346 f. ; as 
applied to the Self, 347 f. ; and to Things, 
348 f . ; as ideal, 350 f . 

Freedom, in relation to the Absolute, 513 f . 

Geometry, the Euclidean, 304 f., 308 f., 
311 f . ; the modern, 315 f.; dependence 
of, on number, 318 f. 

Goethe, on the mystery of nature, 45. 

Gravity, the conception of, 277 f. 

H.eckel, on protoplasm, 467 f. 

Hegel, his theorv of the categories, 85, 

88, 94. 
Heraclitus, his principle of Becoming, 140. 
Hodgson, on conception of metaphysics, 17. 
Hume, his view of metaphysics, 2, 12 f. 
Huygens, on conservation of energy, 280. 

Idea, as immanent in reality, 155 f ., 340 f., 
350 f., 354 f., 356 f . ; forms and laws 
imply the category of, 341 f., 351 f. ; the 
moral, 391 f.; actualitv of the, 473 f., 
477 f., 483 f. 



Idealism, ontology of, 245 f., 473 f., 477 f., 

483 f., 488 f. 
Identity, of things, 155 f.; and of Self, 

156 f. ; as applied to the Absolute, 500 f., 

524 f. 
Inertia, physical conception of, 432 f . 
Infinite, idea of, as applied to time, 202 f. 

Kant, his views on metaphysics, 4 f., 26 ; 
and its method, 26 ; his conception of 
Ding-an-Sich, 44 f., 103 f. ; on the mys- 
tery of Nature, 45 ; metaphysics of his 
"categorical imperative," 59 f. ; his doc- 
trine of the categories, 84 f., 98 f., 102, 
163 f. ; and of the unity of the world, 
102 f . ; his treatment of relation, 163 f. ; 
of space and time, 181 f., 203 f., 219 f.; 
and the mathematical conceptions, 299, 
310, 312, 331 ; on the laws of nature, 
346, 361; his treatment of final purpose, 
373 f., 376 f., 386 f., 389 f. 

Knowledge, always ontological, 10 f ., 19 f., 
57 f., 58, 68 f., 84 f., 124 f.; as interpre- 
tative, 22 f . ; and involving all the cate- 
gories, 86 f., 99 f . ; of the related, 165 f., 
172 f. 

Law, a category, 337 f., 359 f, ; so-called 
"reign" of, 339 f. 359 f., 361; genesis 
of conception of, 340 f. ; as applied to 
Self, 347 f. ; and to Things, 349 f., 361. 

Leibnitz, on conservation of energy, 280. 

Lewes, on conception of force, 437. 

Life, metaphysical conception of, 460 f. ; 
biological view of, 462 f ., 464 f. 

Lotze, his definition of the actual, 62 f. ; on 
the ground of cognition, 114; his con- 
ception of time, 186, 206 ; and of space, 
221; and of force, 288, 437 ; on the recon- 
ciliation of mechanism and Idea, 388 f. 

Mass, physical conception of, 424 f . ; psy- 
chological genesis of, 426 f . ; as measur- 
able quantity, 427 f . 

Materialism, 420 f., 448 f., 453 f. 

Matter, conception of, in metaphysics, 419 
f., 422, 423 f., 429 f., 437, 439 f.; mate- 
rialistic view of, 420 f., 448 f. ; physicist's 
conception of, 423 f., 432 f., 446* f. ; es- 
sential properties of, 424 f., 446 f. ; in- 
volves energy, 431 f., 438 f. ; yet is inert, 
432 f., 438; origin of, in experience, 435 
f.; as a substrate, 438 f., 446 f., 449, 
460 f., 466 f.; with qualitatively differ- 
ent elements, 442 f., 444 f.; not mere 
centres of force, 442 f . ; insufficiency of 
the conception, 453 f. 

Measure (see Quantity). 



INDEX 



555 



Metaphysics, the justification of, 1 f., 6 f., 
10 f., 19 f., 108 f. ; Hume's view of, 2; 
Kant's view of, 4 f. ; Hegel's view of, 6; 
the, of ordinary consciousness, 7 f. ; ob- 
jections to, 9 f., 13 f. ; the conception of, 
16 f ., 19 f. ; its functions, 21 f . ; the 
method of, 24 f.. 28 f. 

Mill, John Stuart, on the conception of 
substance, 120 f., 128 f. 

Mohr, on actio in distans, 275. 

Motion, as actual, 226 f., 233 f., 240 f., 
251 f.; Trendelenburg's theory of. 226: 
universality of, 233 f., 242 f. ; sensation- 
complexes of. 234 f . ; as absolute and 
relative, 240 f . ; as ultimate fact, 251 f . 

Nature, conception of, 45, 359 f., 452 f., as 
a mechanism, 386 £., 468 f. ; as personi- 
fied, 453 f., 456 f., 486 f. ; and an Ab- 
solute Whole, 456 f ., 471 f. ; or Infinite 
Spirit, 458 f., 468 f., 486 f. ; an Ideal, 
487 f. 

Newcomb, Prof. S., his conception of 
"Force," 268; of energy, 269; and of 
space, 304. 

Newton, on the definition of "Force," 268; 
and actio in distans, 274; his conception 
of gravity, 277 f., and of " Matter," 277, 
282. 

Number, conception of, as related to Quan- 
tity, 298 f., 324; science of, 318 f., 330 
f. ; its essence is in counting, 319 f., 322 
f.. 325 f. ; psychological origin of, 319 f., 
321 f. ; as applied to reality, 325 f . 

Parmexides, his conception of Nature, 

454 f. 
Paulsen, his conception of the categories, 

222 f., 228. 
Phenomenon, in contrast with the actual^ 

34 f., 42 f., 46, 54; origin of conception 

of, 35 f., 37 f ., 48 ; as applied to the Self, 

39 f., 42 f., 48; and to Things, 50 f. 
Philosophy, nature of, 3 f., 108. 
Physics, the metaphysics of, 264 f. ; as 

science of dynamics, 265 f. 
Poisson, M., definition of inertia, 434 f. 
Property, conception of, as applied to 

Things, 72 f . 

Quality, of things, 111 f., 133 f., not sepa- 
rable from things, 133 f . ; implies rela- 
tion, 135 f. 

Quantity, conception of. as applied to 
Reality, 285 f., 297 f., 317; scientific use 
of, 294, 301 f., 307 f., 316 f . ; origin of 
conception of, 299 f . ; as relative, 305 f . 



Reality, as involved in experience, 8 f., 
49 f., 61 f., 67 f., 84 f., 88 f., 91 f.. 124 
f., 170 f., 201 f., 260 f., 408 f., 413 f., 475 
f.; not an abstraction, 18 f., 170 f . ; as 
cause of phenomena, 49 f., 254 f . ; con- 
ception of, analyzed, 57 f.. 60 f., 68 f., 
76 f., 84 f., 394 f. ; not mere process, 76; 
nor mere law, 76 f . ; nor mere content 
of consciousness, 77 f. ; nor inscrutable 
essence, 78 ; nor merely negative, 79 f . ; 
as fact, 81; as agent, 81 f . ; as agree- 
ment with law, 82; as harmony of the 
categories, 84 f., 91 f., 99 f ., 107 f. ; not 
the Unrelated, 105 f., 164 f., 170 f., 201 
f., 307, 497 f. ; as "in space and 
time," 178 f., 207 f., 235. 237 f., 408 f. ; 
necessarily dynamical, 254 f . ; and im- 
plying force, 260 f., 289 f., 293, 367; and 
forms and laws, 343 f., 347 f. ; and final 
purpose, 367 f . ; doctrine of spheres of, 
394 f., 401 f., 408 f . ; as a Spiritual Life, 
408 f., 417 f., 449 f. : and a Unity, 413, 
414 f . ; and an Idea, 475 f . 

Relation as " mother " of the categories, 160 
f. ; general nature of, 162 f. ; Kant's treat- 
ment of, 163 f. ; meaning of, in reality, 
164 f., 170 f., 174 f. ; knowledge of. 165 
f . ; as applied to the Absolute, 170 f. ; 
to the Self, 172 f. ; applied to things in 
space and time, 201 f. 

Ribot, view of metaphysics, 17. 

Riehl, on sources of metaphysics, 29 ; con- 
ception of realitv, 74; and of quantitv, 
428. 

Rosmini, his conception of philosophy, 17. 

Royce, Prof., the basis of metaphysics, 20. 

Schellixg. on final purpose in nature, 374 ; 
his conception of matter, 440. 

Schopenhauer, on the principles of "indi- 
viduation." 132, 214 f. ; on space, 214 f. ; 
on the world as Idea, 346; his " Will-to- 
live," 377 f. 

Science, objections of, to metaphysics, 9 f. 

Segner, as quoted by Kant, 45. 

Self, conception of, in metaphysics, 31 f., 
121 f ., 143 f ., 209 f., 231, 395 f", 409 f ., 412 
(and passim ) ; development of conception 
of, 36 f ., 41 f., 404, 406 f . ; as a " phenome- 
non," 39 f. ; and subject of change, 143 
f., 145 f., 215 f. ; but self-relating, 172 f. ; 
as existent in time, 201 f., 212 f . ; yet 
"absolute," 209 f., 397 f . ; as existent in 
space, 216 f ., 219 f . ; and an active prin- 
ciple, 231; the Absolute Self, 397 f., 405 
f., 489 f.; and as Spirit, 400 f., 408 f., 
458 f. ; varying conceptions of, 408 f . ; 
the actualitv of, 481 f. 



556 



INDEX 



Space, reality as "being in," 88 f., 178 f., 
214 f., 249 f . ; occupation of, by things, 
90 f., 251 f.; considered as a "medium," 
178 f., 215; Kantian conception of, 181 
f., 214 f. ; as principle of differentia- 
tion, 214 f., 218 f., 225 f., 238, 245 f.; 
real nature of, 216 f., 227 f., 233 f . ; 
ethical and social bearings of the cate- 
gory of, 216 f . ; as applied to the Self, 
216 f., 219 f., 222 f.,224 f. ; development 
of concept of, 229 f. ; reality of 234 f., 

242 f., 311; as assumed in chemistry, 

243 f . ; divisibility of, 247 f . ; dimen- 
sions of, 248 f . 

Spencer, Herbert, his philosophy ontolog- 
ical, 6 ; conception of reality, 73 f . ; and 
of force, 437. 

Spirit, as the "essence "of the Self, 400 
f ., 407 f., 457 f. ; and of the Being of the 
World, 414 f ., 418, 457, 460 f . ; the In- 
finite, 458 f. 

Substantiality, metaphysical use of, 73, 

111 f., 128 f . ; conception of, as applied 
to things, 117 f ., 128 f . ; as applied to 
Self, 136. 

Teichmuller, on relations of metaphysics 
to experience, 28; on problem of reality, 
74 ; and concept of substance, 127 f . ; and 
of space, 231; on meaning of interaction, 
358. 

Teleology (see " Final Purpose "). 

Theory of Reality, the goal of metaphys- 
ical" system, 29 f., 75, 109 f., 522 "i.; 
practical benefits of, 32 f . ; limitations 
of, 522 f. 

Thing, development of conception of, 36 f., 

112 f.; as a reality, 50 £., 64 f., 68 f., 
130 f. ; involves the harmony of the 
categories, 64 f., 84 f., 232; knowledge 
of, and of Self, 69 f., 401 f . ; properties 
of a, 72 f., 113 f, 401 f., 447 f.; as sub- 
stance and qualities, 113 f., 117 f., 123 f., 
130 f. ; and subject to change, 143 f . ; 
an existence in space, 225 f., 232 f., 234 
f. ; implies forms and laws, 343 f., 347 f. ; 
and final purpose, 368 f., 375 f . ; essen- 
tial self-hood of, 401 f.; although of in- 
ferior order, 403 f., 414 f., 447 f. 



Thomson, Sir Wm., his conception of Force, 
267; and of Matter, 423, 445. 

Time, considered as a "medium," 178 f., 
209 f. ; origin of consciousness of, 184 f., 
187 f.; actuality of, 186 f., 189 f., 191 f, 
209 f. ; assumptions involved in cate- 
gory of, 195 f., 203 f., 207 f.; infinity of, 
202 f. 

Trendelenburg, on the category of motion, 
226. 

Truth, its implicate of reality, 58 f . 

Tyndall, on conservation of energ} 7 , 281; 
and nature of the atom, 448. 

Unity, the, which Reality has, 100 f., 133 
i., 176 f., 329 f., 333 f., 359 f., 413 f; of 
the categories, 105 f ., 132 f. ; as a system 
of relations, 176 f, 335 f . ; nature of the 
conception of, 333 f. 

Uplines, on nature of a Thing, 95 f. 

Volkmann, on development of space-con- 
sciousness, 231 f . ; and conception of 
quantity, 301 ; on genesis of the idea of 
end, 369. 

Ward, on the concept of space, 231; and 
of unity, 323. 

Watson, Prof., on conception of Force, 
437. 

Will, as the reality of things. 70 f, 123 f., 
132 f ., 289 f , 439 f., 506 f., 513 f. 

Williams, Prof. H. S., on heredity, 471. 

World, the,, as existent in time, 195 f., 198 
f., 204 f., 207 f. ; conception of, space- 
wise, 249 f.; as a unity of force, 254 f., 
293, 413 f., 517; as Absolute Self, 405 f., 
411 f., 493 f., 501 f., 517 f., 527; as a 
Subject, 501 f., 506 f. 

World-Ground, conception of Life ap- 
plied to the, 204 f, 250 f , 408 f.; the 
Absolute as the, 493 f., 506 f., 512 f.,523 
f., 527 f. 

Wundt, his analysis of an object-thing, 117 
f. ; on category of relation, 167 f., 291.; 
and of force, 261 f. ; on the conception 
of matter, 422, 445; and of Infinite 
Spirit, 458. 



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